THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


IRENE, .^ 

ANDRtV/S 


OLD  JUNK 


Dook*  by 
H  .    M       I  O  M  I  I  N  V  O  N 


•  I   I  >     J  I '  N  K 

lo-.i.os     IHVKK 

WAI1INC     HIK     DAYI101IT 


OLD  JUNK 

BY  H.  M.  TOMLINSON 

FOREWORD  BY  S.   K.  RATCLIFFE 


NEW  YORK    ALFRED  •  A  •  KNOPF      1930 


COPYRIGHT,  1980,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF.  Inc. 

Published  June,  1920 

Second  Printing,  August,  1920 

Tkird  Printing,  April,  1921 

fourth  Printing,  September,  192 J 

Fifth  Printing,  August,  1930 


f RINTID    IK    TH1    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


TX 


To 
C.  H.  G.  H. 

Who  saw  with  me  so  much  of 

what  is  in  this  book 
(Killed  in  action  in  Artois,  August  27th,  1918) 


THESE  stories  of  travel  and  chance  have 
been    selected    from    writings   published 
in  various  periodicals  between  January 
1907  and  April  1918,  and  are  arranged  in  order 
of  time. 


Foreword 

The  author  of  OLD  JUNK  has  been  called  a 
legend.  A  colleague  who  during  the  later  stages 
of  the  war  visited  the  western  front  assured  me 
that  this  was  the  right  word  by  which  to  describe 
the  memory  left  among  officers  and  ment  not  so 
much  by  his  work  as  a  war  correspondent,  as  by 
his  original  and  fascinating  character.  A  legend, 
too,  he  appears  to  be  in  the  newspaper  world  of 
London:  but  there  in  a  different  sense,  by  reason 
of  the  singular  contradiction  between  the  human 
creature  beloved  of  all  his  fellows  and  the  remark- 
able productions  of  his  pen. 

The  first  thing  to  say  about  H.  M.  Tomlinson, 
the  thing  of  which  you  become  acutely  aware  on 
making  his  acquaintance,  is  that  he  is  a  Londoner. 
"  Nearly  a  pure-blooded  London  Saxon  "  is  his 
characterization  of  himself.  And  so  it  is.  He 
could  have  sprung  from  no  other  stock.  In  per- 
son and  speech,  in  the  indefinable  quality  of  the 
man,  in  the  humour  which  continually  tempers  his 
tremendous  seriousness,  he  belongs  to  London. 
Among  the  men  of  our  time  who  have  done  ere- 


Foreword 

alive  writing  I  can  think  of  no  other  about  whom 
this  can  be  so  precisely  stated. 

It  was  in  the  opening  years  of  the  century  that  I 
first  began  to  notice  his  work.  His  name  was  ap- 
pearing in  the  columns  of  a  London  morning  news- 
paper, since  absorbed  by  the  Daily  News,  over  ar- 
ticles which,  if  my  memory  is  not  at  fault,  were 
mainly  concerned  with  the  life  of  Thames  side. 
They  were  written  with  extraordinary  care.  The 
man  who  did  them  had,  clearly,  no  competitor  in 
Fleet  Street.  And  he  furnishes  a  striking  illustra- 
tion of  the  chances  and  misfits  of  the  journalistic 
life.  When,  after  some  years  of  absence  in  the 
Far  East,  I  was  able  to  fit  a  person  to  the  writing 
which  had  so  long  attracted  me,  I  found  H.  M. 
Tomlinson  on  the  regular  reporting  staff  of  a  great 
London  newspaper.  A  man  born  for  the  creation 
of  beauty  in  words  was  doing  daily  turn  along 
with  the  humble  chronicler  of  metropolitan  trivi- 
alities. 

A  year  or  two  before  the  war  the  quality  of  his 
mind  and  of  his  style  was  revealed  in  THE  SEA 
AND  THE  JUNGLE  —  a  "  narrative  of  the  voyage 
of  the  tramp  steamer  Capella,  from  Swansea  to 
Para  in  the  Brazils,  and  thence  two  thousand  miles 
along  the  forests  of  the  Amazon  and  Madeira 
Rivers  to  the  San  Antonio  Falls,"  returning  by 

[12] 


Foreword 

Barbados,  Jamaica,  and  Tampa.  Its  author 
called  it  merely  "an  honest  book  of  travel"  It 
is  that  no  doubt;  but  in  a  degree  so  eminent,  one  is 
tempted  to  say  that  an  honest  book  of  travel,  when 
so  conceived  and  executed,  must  surely  count 
among  the  noblest  works  of  the  literary  artist. 

The  great  war  provided  almost  unlimited  work 
for  men  of  letters,  and  not  seldom  work  that  was 
almost  as  far  from  their  ordinary  business  as  fight- 
ing itself.  It  carried  Tomlinson  into  the  guild  of 
war  correspondents.  In  the  early  months  he  rep- 
resented the  paper  to  which  for  some  years  he  had 
been  attached,  the  London  Daily  News.  Later, 
under  the  co-operative  scheme  which  emerged 
from  the  restrictive  policy  adopted  by  all  the  bel- 
ligerent governments,  his  dispatches  came  to  be 
shared  among  a  partnership  which  included  the 
London  Times  —  as  odd  an  arrangement  for  a 
man  like  Tomlinson  as  could  well  be  imagined. 
It  would  be  foolish  to  attempt  an  estimate  of  his 
correspondence  from  France.  It  was  beautiful 
copy,  but  it  was  not  war  reporting.  To  those  of 
us  who  knew  him  it  remained  a  marvel  how  he 
could  do  it  at  all.  But  there  was  no  marvel  in  the 
fact,  attested  by  a  notable  variety  of  witnesses,  of 
Tomlinson  as  an  influence  and  a  memory,  persist- 
ing until  the  dispersal  of  the  armies,  as  of  one  who 

[13] 


Foreword 

was  the  friend  of  all,  a  sweet  and  fine  spirit  mov- 
ing untouched  amid  the  ruin  and  terror,  expressing 
itself  everywhere  with  perfect  simplicity,  and  at 
times  with  a  shattering  candor. 

From  France  he  returned,  midway  in  the  war,  to 
join  the  men  who,  under  the  Command  of  H.  W. 
Massingham,  make  the  editorial  staff  of  the  Lon- 
don Nation  the  most  brilliant  company  of  jour- 
nalists in  the  world.  His  hand  may  be  traced 
week  by  week  in  many  columns  and  especially,  in 
alternate  issues,  on  the  page  given  up  to  the  liter- 
ary causerie. 

To  the  readers  of  books  Tomlinson  is  known  at 
present  by  THE  SEA  AND  THE  JUNGLE  alone. 
The  war,  it  may  be,  did  something  to  retard  its 
fame.  But  the  time  is  coming  when  none  will  dis- 
pute its  right  to  a  place  of  exceptional  honour 
among  records  of  travel  —  alongside  the  very  few 
which,  during  the  two  or  three  decades  preceding 
the  general  overturn,  had  been  added  to  the  books 
of  the  great  wayfaring  companions.  It  is  remark- 
ably unlike  all  others,  in  its  union  of  accurate 
chronicle  with  intimate  self -revelation;  and,  al- 
though it  is  the  sustained  expression  of  a  mood,  it 
is  extremely  quotable.  I  choose  as  a  single  exam- 
ple this  scene,  from  the  description  of  the  Capel- 
la's  first  day  on  the  Para  River. 


Foreword 

There  was  seldom  a  sign  of  life  but  the  infrequent 
snowy  herons,  and  those  curious  brown  fowl,  the  ciganas. 
The  sun  was  flaming  on  the  majestic  assembly  of  the  storm. 
The  warm  air,  broken  by  our  steamer,  coiled  over  us  in  a 
lazy  flux.  .  .  .  Sometimes  we  passed  single  habitations  on 
the  water  side.  Ephemeral  huts  of  palm-leaves  were 
forced  down  by  the  forest,  which  overhung  them,  to  wade 
on  frail  stilts.  A  canoe  would  be  tied  to  a  toy  jetty,  and 
on  the  jetty  a  sad  woman  and  several  naked  children  would 
stand,  with  no  show  of  emotion,  to  watch  us  go  by.  Be- 
hind  them  was  the  impenetrable  foliage.  I  thought  of  the 
precarious  tenure  on  earth  of  these  brown  folk  with  some 
sadness,  especially  as  the  day  was  going.  The  easy  domi- 
nance of  the  wilderness,  and  man's  intelligent  morsel  of 
life  resisting  it,  was  made  plain  when  we  came  suddenly 
upon  one  of  his  little  shacks  secreted  among  the  aqueous 
roots  of  a  great  tree,  cowering,  as  it  were,  between  two  of 
the  giant's  toes.  Those  brown  babies  on  the  jetties  never 
cheered  us.  They  watched  us,  serious  and  forlorn. 
Alongside  their  primitive  huts  were  a  few  rubber  trees, 
which  we  knew  by  their  scars.  Late  in  the  afternoon  we 
came  to  a  large  cavern  in  the  base  of  the  forest,  a  shadowy 
place  where  at  last  we  did  see  a  gathering  of  the  folk.  A 
number  of  little  wooden  crosses  peeped  above  the  floor  in 
the  hollow.  The  sundering  floods  and  the  forest  do  not 
always  keep  these  folk  from  congregation,  and  the  comfort 
of  the  last  communion. 

If  the  reader  is  also  a  writer,  he  will  feel  the 
challenge  of  that  passage  — 1/5  spiritual  quality, 
its  rhythm,  its  images.  And  he  will  know  what 

[15] 


Foreword 

gifts  of  mind,  and  what  toil,  have  gone  to  its 
making. 

OLD  JUNK  is  not,  in  the  same  organic  sense,  a 
book.  The  sketches  and  essays  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed are  of  different  years  and,  as  a  glance  will 
show,  of  a  wide  diversity  of  theme.  The  lover  of 
the  great  book  will  be  at  home  with  the  perfect 
picture  of  the  dunes,  as  well  as  with  the  two  bril- 
liantly contrasted  voyages;  while  none  who  can 
feel  the  touch  of  the  interpreter  will  miss  the 
beauty  of  the  pieces  that  may  be  less  highly 
wrought. 

As  to  Tomlinson's  future  I  would  not  venture  a 
prediction.  Conceivably^  when  the  horror  has  be- 
come a  memory  that  can  be  lived  with  and  trans- 
fused, he  may  write  one  of  the  living  books  en- 
shrining the  experience  of  these  last  five  years. 
But,  just  as  likely  he  may  not.  I  subscribe,  in  end- 
ing this  rough  note,  to  a  judgment  recently  deliv- 
ered by  a  fellow  worker  that  among  all  the  men 
writing  in  England  today  there  is  none  known  to 
us  whose  work  reveals  a  more  indubitable  sense  of 
the  harmonies  of  imaginative  prose. 

S.  K.  RATCLIFFE. 
New  York,  Christmas, 

[16] 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

FOREWORD  BY  S.  K.  RATCLIFFE 

I.  THE  AFRICAN  COAST 

II.  THE  CALL 

III.  OLD  JUNK 

IV.  BED-BOOKS  AND  NIGHT-LIGHTS 
V.  TRANSFIGURATION 

VI.  THE  PIT  MOUTH 

VII.  INITIATION 

VIII.  THE  ART  OF  WRITING 

IX.  A  FIRST  IMPRESSION 

X.  THE  DERELICT 

XI.  THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  Mona 

XII.  THE  LASCAR'S  WALKING-STICK 

XIII.  THE  EXTRA  HAND 

XIV.  THE  SOU'-WESTER 
XV.  ON  LEAVE 

XVI.  THE  DUNES 

XVII.  BINDING  A  SPELL 

XVIII.  A  DIVISION  ON  THE  MARCH 

XIX.  HOLLY-HO! 

XX.  THE  RUINS 

XXL  LENT,  1918 


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OLD  JUNK 


I.     The  African  Coast 


SHE  is  the  steamship  Celestine,  and  she  is 
but  a  little  lady.  The  barometer  has 
fallen,  and  the  wind  has  risen  to  hunt  the 
rain.  I  do  not  know  where  C destine  is  going, 
and,  what  is  better,  do  not  care.  This  is  Decem- 
ber and  this  is  Algiers,  and  I  am  tired  of  white 
glare  and  dust.  The  trees  have  slept  all  day. 
They  have  hardly  turned  a  leaf.  All  day  the  sky 
was  without  a  flaw,  and  the  summer  silence  out- 
side the  town,  where  the  dry  road  goes  between 
hedges  of  arid  prickly  pears,  was  not  reticence 
but  vacuity.  But  I  sail  tonight,  and  so  the 
barometer  is  falling,  and  I  do  not  know  where 
Celestine  will  take  me.  I  do  not  care  where  I  go 
with  one  whose  godparents  looked  at  her  and 
called  her  that. 

There  is  one  place  called  Jidjelli  we  shall  see, 

and  there  is  another  called  Collo;  and  there  are 

many  others,  whose  names  I  shall  never  learn, 

tucked  away  in  the  folds  of  the  North  African 

[21] 


Old  Junk 

hills  where  they  come  down  to  the  sea  between 
Algiers  and  Carthage.  They  will  reveal  them- 
selves as  I  find  my  way  to  Tripoli  of  Barbary.  I 
am  bound  for  Tripoli,  without  any  reason  except 
that  I  like  the  name  and  admire  C destine,  who  is 
going  part  of  the  journey. 

But  the  barometer,  wherever  I  am,  seems  to 
know  when  I  embark.  It  falls.  When  I  went 
aboard  the  wind  was  howling  through  the  shipping 
in  the  harbour  of  Algiers.  And  again,  Celestine 
is  French,  and  so  we  can  do  little  more  than  smile 
at  each  other  to  make  visible  the  friendship  of 
our  two  great  nations.  A  cable  is  clanking 
slowly,  and  sailors  run  and  shout  in  great  excite- 
ment, doing  things  I  can  see  no  reason  for,  be- 
cause it  is  as  dark  and  stormy  as  the  forty  days. 

Algiers  is  a  formless  cluster  of  lower  stars,  and 
presently  those  stars  begin  to  revolve  about  us  as 
though  the  wind  really  had  got  the  sky  loose. 
The  Celestine  is  turning  her  head  for  the  sea. 
The  stars  then  speed  by  our  masts  and  funnel  till 
the  last  is  gone.  Good-bye,  Algiers  1 

Celestine  begins  to  curtsy,  and  at  last  becomes 
somewhat  hysterical.  At  night,  in  a  high  wind, 
she  seems  but  a  poor  little  body  to  be  out  alone, 
with  me.  Tripoli  becomes  more  remote  than  I 
thought  it  to  be  in  the  early  afternoon,  when  the 
[22] 


The  African  Coast 

French  sailor  talked  to  me  in  a  cafe  while  he 
drank  something  so  innocently  pink  that  it  could 
not  account  altogc  ther  for  his  vivacity  and  sudden 
open  friendship  for  a  shy  alien.  He  wanted  me 
to  elope  with  Celestine.  He  wanted  to  show  me 
his  African  shore,  to  see  his  true  Mediterranean. 
I  had  travelled  from  Morocco  to  Algiers,  and  was 
tired  of  tourist  trains,  historic  ruins,  hotels,  Arabs 
selling  picture-postcards  and  worse,  and  girls 
dancing  the  dance  of  the  Ouled-Nails  to  the  priv- 
ileged who  had  paid  a  few  francs  to  see  them  do 
it.  I  had  observed  that  tranquil  sea;  and  in 
places,  as  at  Oran,  had  seen  in  the  distance  ter- 
races of  coloured  rock  poised  in  enchantment  be- 
tween a  blue  ceiling  and  a  floor  of  malachite. 

That  sea  is  now  on  our  port  beam.  It  goes 
before  an  inshore  gale,  and  lifts  us  high,  turns  us 
giddy  with  a  sudden  betrayal  and  descent;  and 
does  it  again,  and  again.  Africa  has  vanished. 
Where  Algiers  probably  was  there  are  but  sev- 
eral frail  stars  far  away  in  the  dark  that  soar  in 
a  hurry,  and  then  collapse  into  the  deep  and  are 
doused. 

But  here  is  le  Capitaine.  There  is  no  need,  of 
course,  to  be  anxious  for  Celestine.  If  her  mas- 
ter is  not  a  sailor,  then  all  the  signs  are  wrong; 
He  looks  at  me  roguishly.  Ah!  His  ship  rolls. 

[23] 


Old  Junk 

But  the  mistake,  it  is  not  his.  What  would  I 
have?  She  was  built  in  England.  Voila! 

He  is  a  little  dark  man,  with  quick,  questioning 
eyes,  and  hair  like  a  clothesbrush.  His  short 
alert  hair,  his  raised  and  querulous  eyebrows,  his 
taut  moustaches,  and  a  bit  of  beard  that  hangs 
like  a  dagger  from  his  under  lip,  give  him  the  ap- 
pearance of  constant  surprise  and  fretfulness. 
When  he  is  talking  to  me  he  is  embarrassingly 
playful  —  but  I  shall  show  him  presently,  with 
fair  luck,  that  my  inelastic  Saxon  putty  can  trans- 
mute itself,  can  also  volatilise  in  abandonment  to 
sparkling  nonsense ;  yet  not  tonight  —  not  to- 
night, monsieur.  He  is  so  gay  and  friendly  to  me 
whenever  he  sees  me.  But  when  one  of  the  staff 
does  that  which  is  not  down  in  the  book,  I  become 
alarmed.  Monsieur  bangs  the  table  till  the  cruet- 
stoppers  leap  out,  and  his  eyes  are  unpleasant. 
Yes,  he  is  the  master.  He  rises,  and  shakes  his 
forefinger  at  the  unfortunate  till  his  hand  is  a 
quivering  haze  and  his  speech  a  blast.  "  Ou  — 
e — e  —  eh!  "  cries  the  skipper  at  last,  when  the 
unfortunate  is  on  the  run. 

He  has  an  idea  I  cannot  read  the  menu,  so  when 
an  omelette  is  served  he  informs  me,  in  case  I 
should  suppose  it  is  a  salad.  He  makes  helpful 
farmyard  noises.  There  is  no  mistaking  eggs. 

[24] 


The  African  Coast 

There  is  no  mistaking  pork.  But  I  think  he  has 
the  wrong  pantomime  for  the  ship's  beef,  unless 
French  horses  have  the  same  music  as  English 
cows.  After  the  first  dinner,  I  was  indiscreet 
enough  to  refuse  the  cognac  with  the  coffee. 
"  Ah!  "  he  chided,  smiling  with  craft,  and  shaking 
a  knowing  finger  at  me.  He  could  read  my  native 
weakness.  I  was  discovered.  "  Viskee  1  You 
'ave  my  viskee !  "  A  dreadful  doubt  seized  me, 
and  I  would  have  refused,  but  repressed  my  panic, 
and  pretended  he  had  found  my  heart. 

He  rose,  and  shouted  a  peremptory  order.  A 
little  private  cabinet  was  opened.  A  curious  bot- 
tle was  produced,  having  a  deadly  label  in  red, 
white,  and  green.  "Viskee!"  cried  the  captain 
in  exultation.  (My  God!)  "Aha!"  said  the 
reader  of  my  hidden  desire,  pouring  out  the  tipple 
for  which  he  imagines  I  am  perishing  in  stoic  Brit- 
ish silence.  "  Viskee !  "  I  drain  off,  with  sim- 
ulated delight,  my  large  dose  of  methylated  spirit. 
Not  for  worlds  would  I  undeceive  the  good  fellow, 
not  if  this  were  train-oil.  He  laughs  aloud  at 
our  secret  insular  weakness.  He  knows  it.  But 
he  is  our  very  good  friend. 

All  is  not  finished  with  the  whisky.  Out  comes 
the  master's  English  Grammar,  for  he  is  wishful 
to  know  us  better  before  I  leave  him.  And  he 


Old  Junk 

shall.  To  this  Frenchman  I  determine  to  be 
nobler  than  I  was  made.  I  think  I  would  teach 
him  English  all  the  way  to  Cochin-China.  He 
writes  in  his  notebook,  very  slowly,  while  his 
tongue  comes  out  to  look  on,  a  sentence  like  this : 
"  The  nombres  Franchise,  they  are  most  easy  that 
the  English  language."  Then  I  put  him  right; 
and  then  he  rises,  reaches  his  hands  up  to  my 
shoulders,  looks  earnestly  in  my  eyes,  and  la-las 
my  National  Anthem.  It  may  please  God  not  to 
let  me  look  so  foolish  as  I  feel  while  I  wait  for 
the  end  of  that  tune ;  but  I  doubt  that  it  does. 

II 

Early  next  morning  we  arrived  at  Bougie,  to 
get  an  hour's  peace  with  the  arm  of  the  harbour 
thrown  about  my  poor  Celestine.  The  deck  of  a 
Grimsby  trawler  discharging  fish  in  the  Humber 
on  a  wet  December  morning  is  no  more  desolating 
than  was  the  look  of  Celestine  under  the  moun- 
tains of  Bougie;  and  Bougie,  if  you  have  a 
memory  for  the  coloured  posters,  is  in  the  blue 
Mediterranean.  But  do  I  grumble?  I  do  not. 
With  all  the  world  but  slops,  cold  iron,  and  squalls 
of  sleet,  I  prefer  Celestine  to  Algiers. 

Most  likely  you  have  never  heard  of  the  black 
Mediterranean.  It  is  usual  to  go  there  in  winter, 

[26] 


The  African  Coast 

and  write  about  it  with  a  date-palm  in  every 
paragraph,  till  you  have  got  all  the  health  and 
enjoyment  there  is  in  the  satisfaction  of  telling 
others  that  while  they  are  choosing  cough  cures 
you  are  under  a  sunshade  on  the  coral  strand. 
The  truth  is,  the  Middle  Sea  in  December  can 
be  as  ugly  as  the  Dogger  Bank.  There  were 
some  Arab  deck  passengers  on  our  coaster.  One 
of  them  sat  looking  at  a  deck  rivet  as  motionless 
as  a  fakir,  and  his  face  had  the  complexion  of  a 
half-ripe  watermelon.  His  fellow-sufferers  were 
only  heaps  of  wet  and  dirty  linen  dumped  in  the 
lee  alley-way.  It  was  bad  enough  in  a  bunk, 
where  you. could  brace  your  knees  against  the  side, 
and  keep  moderately  still  till  you  dozed  off,  when 
naturally  you  were  shot  out  sprawling  into  the 
lost  drainage  wandering  on  the  erratic  floor. 
What  those  Arabs  suffered  on  deck  I  cannot  tell 
you.  I  never  went  up  to  find  out.  At  Bougie 
they  seemed  to  have  left  it  all  to  Allah,  with  the 
usual  result.  It  was  clear,  from  a  glance  at  those 
piles  of  rags,  that  the  Arab  is  no  more  native  to 
Algeria  than  the  Esquimaux.  I  was  much  nearer 
home  than  the  Arabs.  That  shining  coast  which 
occasionally  I  had  surprised  from  Oran,  which 
seemed  afloat  on  the  sea,  was  no  longer  a  vision 
of  magic,  the  unsubstantial  work  of  Iris,  an  il- 

[27] 


Old  Junk 

lusionary  cloud  of  coral,  amber,  and  amethyst. 
It  was  the  bare  bones  of  this  old  earth,  as  sombre 
and  foreboding  as  any  ruin  of  granite  under  the 
wrack  of  the  bleak  north. 

As  for  Bougie,  these  African  villages  are  built 
but  for  bright  sunlight.  They  change  to  miser- 
able and  -filthy  ruins  in  the  rain,  their  white  walls 
blotched  and  scabrous,  and  their  paths  mud  tracks 
between  the  styes.  Their  lissom  and  statuesque 
inhabitants  become  softened  and  bent,  and  pad 
dejectedly  through  the  muck  as  though  they  were 
ashamed  to  live,  but  had  to  go  on  with  it.  The 
palms  which  look  so  well  in  sunny  pictures  are 
besoms  up-ended  in  a  drizzle.  They  have  not 
that  equality  with  the  storm  which  makes  the 
Sussex  beech  and  oak,  heavily  based  and  strong- 
armed,  stand  with  a  look  of  might  and  roar  at 
the  charges  of  the  Channel  gale.  By  this  you 
will  see  that  Bougie  must  wait  until  I  call  that  way 
again.  From  the  look  of  the  sky,  too,  there  is  no 
doubt  we  are  in  for  a  spell  of  the  kind  of  weather 
I  never  expected  to  meet  in  Africa.  I  was  a 
stranger  there,  but  I  knew  the  language  of  those 
squadrons  of  dark  clouds  driving  into  the  bay. 

The  northern  sky  was  full  of  their  gloomy 
keels.  There  were  intervals  when  the  full  ex- 
panse of  Bougie  Bay  became  visible,  with  its  con- 


The  African  Coast 

course  of  mountains  crowded  to  the  shore.  At  the 
base  of  the  dark  declivities  the  combers  were 
bursting,  and  the  spume  towered  on  the  gale  like 
grey  smoke.  Out  of  the  foam  rose  harsh  rubble 
and  screes  to  incline  against  broken  precipices* 
and  those  stark  walls  were  interrupted  by  mid-air 
slopes  of  grass  which  appeared  ready  to  avalanche 
into  the  tumult  below,  but  remained,  livid  areas 
of  a  dim  mass  which  rose  into  dizzy  pinnacles 
and  domes,  increasing  the  tumbling  menace  of  the 
sky.  A  fleet  of  clouds  of  deep  draught  ran  into 
Africa  from  the  north;  went  aground  on  those 
crags,  were  wrecked  and  burst,  their  contents 
streaming  from  them  and  hiding  the  aerial  reef 
on  which  they  had  struck.  The  land  vanished, 
till  only  Bougie  and  its  quay  and  the  Celestine 
remained,  with  one  last  detached  fragment  of 
mountain  high  over  us.  That,  too,  dissolved. 
There  was  only  our  steamer  and  the  quay  at  last. 
I  thought  our  master  would  not  dare  to  put  out 
from  there,  but  he  cared  as  little  for  the  storm 
as  for  the  steward.  His  last  bales  were  no 
sooner  in  the  lighters  than  he  made  for  Jidjelli. 
But  Jidjelli  daunted  even  him.  The  nearer 
we  got,  the  worse  it  looked.  My  own  feel- 
ing was  that  the  gathering  seas  had  taken 
charge  of  our  scallop,  a  cork  in  the  surf, 

09] 


Old  Junk 

and  were  pitching  her,  helpless,  towards  ter- 
rible walls  built  of  night  out  of  a  base 
of  thunder  and  bursting  waters.  I  gripped  a  rail, 
and  saw  a  vague  range  of  summits  appear  above 
the  nearing  walls  and  steadily  develop  towards 
distinction.  Then  the  howling  gale  began  to 
scream,  the  ceiling  lowered  and  darkened,  and 
merged  with  the  rocks,  reducing  the  world  but 
to  our  Celestine  in  the  midst  of  near  flashes  of 
white  in  an  uproar.  When  presently  a  little  day- 
light came  into  chaos  to  give  it  shape  again,  there 
was  an  inch  of  hail  on  our  deck,  and  the  mountains 
had  been  changed  to  white  marble.  We  saw  a 
red  light  burn  low  in  the  place  where  Jidjelli  ought 
to  be,  a  signal  that  it  was  impossible  to  enter. 
Our  skipper  put  about. 

That  is  all  I  know  of  Jidjelli,  and  all  I  wanted 
to  know  on  such  an  evening.  The  sound  of  the 
surf  on  the  rocks  was  better  to  hear  when  it  was 
not  so  close.  We  followed  that  coast  all  night 
while  I  lay  awake,  shaking  to  the  racing  of  the 
propeller;  and  I  blessed  the  unknown  engineers 
of  the  North  Country  who  took  forethought  of 
nights  of  that  kind  when  doing  their  best  for 
Celestine;  for,  though  bruised,  I  still  loved  her 
above  Algiers  and  Timgad.  She  had  character, 
she  had  set  her  course,  and  she  was  holding  stead- 

[30] 


The  African  Coast 

ily  to  it,  and  did  not  pray  the  uncompassionate 
to  change  its  face. 

in 

For  more  than  a  week  we  washed  about  in  the 
surf  of  a  high,  dark  coast  towards  Tunis.  We 
might  have  been  on  the  windward  side  of  Ultima 
Thule.  Supposing  you  could  have  been  taken 
miraculously  from  your  fogs  and  midday  lamps  of 
London,  and  put  with  me  in  the  Celestine,  and 
told  that  that  sullen  land  looming  through  the 
murk  could  be  yours,  if  you  could  guess  its  name, 
then  you  would  have  guessed  nothing  below  the 
fortieth  parallel. 

No  matter;  when  you  were  told,  you  would 
have  laughed  at  your  loss.  Now  you  understood 
why  it  was  called  the  Dark  Continent.  It  looked 
the  home  of  slavery,  murder,  rhinoceroses,  the 
Congo,  war,  human  sacrifices,  and  gorillas.  It 
had  the  forefront  of  the  world  of  skulls  and  hor- 
rors, ultimatums,  mining  concessions,  chains,  and 
development.  Its  rulers  would  be  throned  on 
bone-heaps.  You  will  say  (of  course  you  will 
say)  that  I  saw  Africa  like  that  because  I  was 
weary  of  the  place.  Not  at  all.  I  was  merely 
looking  at  it.  The  feeling  had  been  growing  on 
me  since  first  I  saw  Africa  at  Oran,  where  I 

[so 


Old  Junk 

landed      The  longer  I  stay,  the  more  depressed 
I  get. 

This  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  storm.  This 
African  shadow  does  not  chill  you  because  you 
wish  you  were  home,  and  home  is  far  away.  It 
does  not  come  of  your  rare  and  lucky  idleness,  in 
which  you  have  to  do  nothing  but  enjoy  yourself; 
generally  a  sufficient  reason  for  melancholy, 
though  rarely  so  in  my  own  case.  No,  Africa 
itself  is  the  reason.  There  is  an  invisible  emana- 
tion from  its  soil,  the  aura  of  evil  in  antiquity. 
You  cannot  see  it,  at  first  you  are  unaware  it  is 
there,  and  cannot  know,  therefore,  what  is  the 
matter  with  you.  This  haunting  premonition  is 
different  from  mere  wearying  and  boredom.  It 
gets  worse,  the  longer  you  stay;  it  goes  deeper 
than  sadness,  it  descends  into  a  conviction  of 
something  that  is  without  hope,  that  is  bad  in  its 
nature,  and  unrepentant  in  its  arrogant  heart. 
When  you  have  got  so  far  down  you  have  had 
time  to  discover  what  that  is  which  has  put  you  so 
low.  The  day  may  be  radiant,  the  sky  just  what 
you  had  hoped  to  find  in  Africa,  and  the  people 
in  the  market-place  a  lively  and  chromatic  jangle; 
but  the  shadow  of  what  we  call  inhumanity  (when 
we  are  trying  to  persuade  ourselves  that  human- 

[32] 


The  African  Coast 

ity  is  something  very  different)  chills  and  darkens 
the  heart. 

Yet  the  common  sky  of  North  Africa  might  be 
the  heaven  of  the  first  morning,  innocent  of 
knowledge  that  night  is  to  come.  It  is  not  a  hard 
blue  roof;  your  sight  is  lost  in  the  atmosphere 
which  is  azure.  The  sun  more  than  shines;  his 
beams  ring  on  the  rocks,  and  glance  in  colours 
from  the  hills.  From  a  distance  the  flowers  on  a 
hill  slope  will  pour  down  to  the  sea  in  such  a  tor- 
rent of  hues  that  you  might  think  the  arch  of 
the  rainbow  you  saw  there  had  collapsed  in  the 
sun  and  was  now  rills  and  cascades.  The  grove 
of  palms  holding  their  plumes  above  a  white 
village  might  be  delicate  pencillings  on  the  yellow 
sheet  of  desert.  The  heat  is  a  balm.  The 
shadows  are  stains  of  indigo  on  the  roads  and 
pale  walls. 

IV 

One  day  we  found  Sfax.  I  went  ashore  at 
Sf ax,  interested  in  a  name  quite  new  to  me.  The 
guide-book  did  not  even  mention  it;  perhaps  it  was 
not  worth  while;  no  ruins,  mummies,  trams  or 
hotels  there,  of  course.  Maybe  it  was  only  the 
name  of  a  man,  or  a  grass,  or  a  sort  of  phosphate. 
Sfax!  Well,  anyhow,  I  had  long  wished  for 

[33] 


Old  Junk 

Africa,  anywhere  in  Africa,  and  here  I  was,  not 
eager  to  get  home  again,  but  not  disinclined. 
What  I  had  seen  of  it  so  far  was  a  rather  too  fre- 
quented highway  opposite  the  coast  of  Europe  — 
a  complementary  establishment.  Progress  had 
macadamised  it.  Commerce  and  its  wars  had 
graded  and  uniformed  and  drilled  its  life.  Its 
silent  people  marched  in  ranks,  as  it  were,  along 
mapped  roads  foredoomed,  and  its  mills  went 
round.  Its  life  was  expressed  for  export.  It  was 
on  the  way  to  Manchester  and  success.  Of  all  the 
infernal  uses  to  which  a  country  can  be  put  there 
is  none  like  development.  Let  every  good  savage 
make  incantation  against  it,  or,  if  to  some  extent 
he  has  been  developed,  cross  himself  against  the 
fructification  of  the  evil.  As  for  us  whites,  we  are 
eternally  damned,  for  we  cannot  escape  the  conse- 
quences of  our  past  cleverness.  The  Devil  has 
us  on  a  complexity  of  strings,  and  some  day  will 
pull  the  whole  lot  tight.  But  SfaxI  Had  I 
escaped?  Was  there  a  chance ? 

I  found  a  city  wall,  a  huge  battlement,  ancient 
and  weathered,  like  an  unscalable  cliff,  and  going 
through  its  gate  was  entering  the  shadows  of  a 
cave.  Out  of  the  glare  of  the  sun  I  went  into  the 
gloom  of  deep,  narrow,  and  mysterious  passages. 
The  sun  was  only  on  the  parapets  and  casements, 

[34] 


The  African  Coast 

which  leaned  towards  each  other  confidentially, 
and  left  only  a  ragged  line  of  light  above.  These 
alley-ways  were  crowded  with  camels,  asses,  and 
strange  men.  An  understanding  and  sneering 
camel  in  a  narrow  passage  will  force  you  to  take 
what  chance  there  is  of  escape  in  desecrating  a 
mosque,  while  Moslems  watch  you  as  the  only 
Christian  there,  or  of  going  under  its  slobber- 
ing mouth  and  splay  feet.  It  does  not  care 
which. 

It  was  market-day  for  Sfax.  There  were  little 
piles  of  vivid  fruit  beside  white  walls  where  a 
broad  ray  of  sunlight  found  them.  There  were 
silversmiths  at  work,  tent-makers,  and  the  makers 
of  camel  harness.  The  tanners  had  laid  skins 
for  us  to  walk  over.  There  were  exotic  smells. 
I  went  exploring  the  crooked  turnings  with  an  in- 
difference which  was  studied.  I  was  getting  an 
interesting  time,  but  was  distinctly  conscious  of 
eyes,  a  ceaseless  stream  of  eyes  that  floated  by, 
watchful  though  making  no  sign.  Several  times 
I  found  myself  jostled  with  some  roughness.  It 
occurred  to  me  that  I  had  heard  on  the  ship  that 
Sfax  was  the  only  town  which  had  offered  re- 
sistance to  the  French ;  its  men  have  a  fine  reputa- 
tion throughout  Tunisia,  which  they  do  some- 
thing now  and  then  to  maintain,  in  consequence. 

[35] 


Old  Junk 

They  certainly  appeared  a  sturdy  and  virile  lot. 
They  were  not  listless,  like  the  Arabs  of  Algeria, 
who  have  nothing  to  show  for  themselves  but  the 
haughty  and  aloof  bearing  of  the  proud  but  beaten. 

Having  discovered  that  the  enemy  was  vul- 
nerable though  strong,  the  men  of  Sfax  go  through 
the  day  now  with  the  directed  activity  of  those 
who  once  had  got  the  worst  of  it,  but  have  a 
hope  of  doing  better  next  time.  They  gave  me 
a  lively  and  adventurous  scene.  They  moved 
with  silent  and  stealthy  quickness.  Their  eyes 
glanced  sideways  from  under  their  cowls.  Their 
hands  were  hidden  under  their  jibbahs.  A  few 
of  them  stared  with  the  hate  of  the  bereft.  It 
is  not  possible  to  face  everybody  in  a  press  which 
moves  in  all  directions,  and  I  was  the  only  Euro- 
pean who  was  there. 

Passing  a  mosque,  where  I  noticed  the  Moslems 
had  attempted,  but  had  not  completed,  the  ob- 
literation of  some  representations  of  birds, —  so 
the  mosque  was  once,  evidently,  a  place  where 
other  gods  had  been  worshipped, —  I  hesitated, 
wishing  to  look  closer  into  this  curiosity,  but  recol- 
lected myself,  and  was  passing  on.  An  Arab  in 
the  turban  of  one  who  had  been  to  Mecca  was 
squatting  cross-legged  on  the  old  marble  pave- 
ment outside  the  mosque,  and  I  just  took  in  that 

[36] 


The  African  Coast 

he  was  a  fine  venerable  fellow  with  an  important 
beard,  with  a  look  of  wisdom  and  experience  in 
his  steady  glance  from  under  the  strong  arches 
of  his  eyebrows  that  made  me  wish  I  knew  Arabic, 
and  could  squat  beside  him,  and  gossip  of  the  wide 
world.  As  I  turned  he  said  quietly,  "  Good 
day!" 

Now  I  thought  perhaps  I  was  bewitched,  but 
turned  and  looked  at  him.  "How  are  you?" 
he  asked.  At  that  moment,  when  his  eyes  look- 
ing upward  had  a  smile  of  understanding  mischief, 
and  in  such  an  alien  city  as  Sfax,  I  was  prepared 
to  declare  there  is  but  one  God  and  Mahomet 
is  His  prophet.  For  that  sort  of  thing  comes 
easy  to  me;  and  would  have  been  quite  true,  as 
far  as  it  went.  Then  I  went  back  to  him,  and 
fearing  that  after  all  I  might  be  addressing  but 
the  parrot  which  had  already  exhausted  its  vocab- 
ulary, I  tried  it  on  him :  "  Shall  I  take  my  boots 
off  here,  father,  or  may  I  sit  down  with  you?" 

"  Sit  down,"  he  said. 

He  was  a  man  of  medicine.  He  sold  there 
prophylactics  against  small-pox,  adultery,  blind- 
ness, the  evil  eye,  sterility,  or  any  other  trouble 
which  you  thought  threatened  you.  If  a  man 
feared  for  the  faithfulness  of  his  spouse,  it  seems 
Father  the  Hadj  could  secure  it  with  a  charm, 

[37] 


Old  Junk 

and  so  allow  him  to  spend  the  night  elsewhere 
in  perfect  enjoyment  and  content.  That  is  what 
the  quiet  old  cynic  told  me,  and  invited  me  to 
inspect  his  display  of  amulets  and  fetishes,  col- 
oured glass  tablets  with  Arabic  inscriptions,  and 
a  deal  of  stuff  which  looked  unreasonable  to  me, 
articles  the  holy  man  either  could  not  or  would 
not  resolve  into  sense. 

His  English,  which  he  had  learned  as  a  ship- 
ping agent  for  the  pilgrim  traffic,  soon  reached 
its  narrow  limits,  to  my  sorrow.  When  it  left 
common  objects  and  we  wished  to  compare  our 
world  (for  there  is  no  doubt  he  was  an  expe- 
rienced and  understanding  elder  who  knew  to 
within  a  little  what  he  might  expect  of  his  God 
and  of  his  fellows),  we  were  left  smiling  at  each 
other,  and  had  to  guess  the  rest.  Yet  at  least 
the  bazaar  could  witness  this  good  Moslem  of 
age  and  admitted  wisdom  sitting  opposite  a  dub- 
ious Christian  in  a  companionable  manner;  and 
there  was  that  testimony  to  my  advantage.  They 
even  watched  him  draw  his  finger  across  his  throat 
in  serious  and  energetic  pantomime,  and  saw  me 
nod  in  grave  appreciation,  when  he  was  trying  to 
make  me  understand  what  was  his  sympathy  for 
the  Christian  conquerors  of  Sfax. 

I  went  outside  the  landward  gate  of  the  city, 

[38] 


The  African  Coast 

and  looked  out  over  the  level  of  brilliant  sand 
which  stretched  out  from  there  to  Lake  Tchad. 
What  a  voyage!  What  a  lure  I  Perhaps  there 
is  no  more  perilous  journey  on  earth  than  that, 
and  if  a  traveller  would  vanish  into  the  past,  into 
such  Oriental  countries  as  the  voyagers  of  Hakluyt 
saw  with  wonder,  then  to  leave  Sfax,  and  go  across 
country  to  the  Niger,  would  equal  what  once  came 
of  fooling  with  the  arcana  of  the  Djinn.  Though, 
after  all.  one  would  like  to  emerge  again,  to  tell 
the  tale  to  the  children;  and  the  whole  dubiety 
of  it  is  in  that  last  difficulty.  It  is  almost  certain 
the  magic  would  be  too  powerful. 

About  the  bright  yellow  sea  of  the  desert  which 
came  up  to  the  high  cliffs  of  the  town,  the  squat- 
ting camels  made  dark  hummocks.  Strings  of 
donkeys  converged  on  the  city  gate  bearing  water- 
pots  and  baskets  of  charcoal.  Sometimes  a  line 
of  camels  swayed  outwards  through  the  crowd, 
disappeared  among  the  shrines,  going  south. 
Watching  such  a  caravan  go  was  the  same  as 
watching  a  ship  leave  port. 

By  the  wayside  was  a  huckster.  He  banged 
a  tomtom  till  he  had  gathered  a  crowd  from  the 
loose  concourse  of  men  who  had  come  long  jour- 
neys with  esparto  grass,  or  gums  and  ostrich 
plumes,  and  much  else  from  the  secret  region  in- 

[39] 


Old  Junk 

land.  He  was  selling  cotton  shirts,  and  was  an 
entertaining  villain.  By  the  corners  of  his  mouth 
his  humour  was  leery.  He  did  not  laugh,  but 
his  grimaces  were  funny.  The  variegated  crowd 
and  that  huckster  was  too  enticing,  and  forgetting 
I  had  not  seen  one  of  my  own  kind  since  leaving 
the  ship,  and  that  my  face  among  those  black  and 
brown  masks  was  as  loud  as  the  tomtom,  I  mingled 
my  outrageous  tourist  tweeds  with  the  graceful 
folds  of  the  robes.  The  huckster  kept  glancing 
at  me,  and  from  grave  side-long  glances  that  crowd 
of  men  went  to  the  extraordinary  length  of  grim 
smiles.  Suddenly  I  recognized  the  trick  of  that 
Arab  cheap  jack.  It  may  be  seen  at  work  in  Pop- 
lar, my  native  parish  to  which  the  ships  come, 
when  a  curious  and  innocent  Chinaman  joins  the 
group  about  the  fluent  quack  in  the  market  place. 

As  soon  as  dignity  permitted  I  passed  on,  and 
my  dignity  did  not  keep  me  waiting  for  any  length 
of  time. 

Uncertain,  and  not  a  little  nervous,  I  wandered 
among  some  plantations  of  olives  and  false  pep- 
pers, where  the  domes  of  the  tombs  floated  like 
white  bubbles  on  the  foliage.  Here  an  Arab 
beckoned  to  me,  and  told  me  he  had  been  watch- 
ing me  for  some  time  —  for  he  was  an  English 
medical  missionary  in  disguise  —  and  warned  me 

[40] 


The  African  Coast 

that  these,  gardens  and  shrines  were  quite  the 
wrong  place  to  wander  in  alone.  It  appears  that 
only  a  few  days  since  the  flame  of  insurrection 
flashed  down  the  bazaar,  licked  up  a  few  French 
soldiers  who  happened  to  be  there,  and  had  al- 
most got  a  hold  before  the  garrison  appeared  and 
doused  it.  He  took  me  to  his  house,  with  its 
windows  heavily  barred,  for  there  his  predeces- 
sor had  been  murdered.  (If  this  could  happen 
at  the  starting-place  for  Lake  Tchad,  then  let  the 
idea  go.) 

From  the  flat  roof  of  the  doctor's  house  I 
smelt  the  dung  of  ages,  fought  with  legions  of 
flies,  and  looked  down  on  a  large  quadrangle  of 
hay  and  stable  muck,  where  camels  had  carefully 
folded  themselves  on  the  ground,  and  chewed  re- 
flectively, their  eyes  half  closed;  and  large  drowsy 
asses  mechanically  fanned  their  ears  at  the  loathly 
swarms.  The  missionary  surmised  that  the  car- 
avanserai below  was  the  perfect  reflection  of  one 
we  had  heard  more  about,  which  was  once  at 
Bethlehem.  The  square  was  enclosed  with  flat- 
roofed  stables,  and  it  being  a  busy  time  they  were 
all  occupied.  The  first  one,  immediately  below 
us,  was  filled  with  a  family  of  Kabyles,  which  con- 
sisted chiefly  of  a  magnificent  virago  of  a  wife, 
tattooed,  with  a  fine  gold  ring  in  her  nostrils, 

[40 


Old  Junk 

who  seemed  to  have  a  trying  life  with  her  mild 
and  contemplative  old  husband.  She  had  more 
children  than  one  could  count  without  giving  the 
matter  that  close  attention  which  might  be  misin- 
terpreted. She  cradled  them  in  the  manger 
every  night.  Loud  as  her  voice  was,  though,  I 
could  almost  hear  the  old  man  smile  as  he  walked 
away  from  her.  They  had  two  contemptuous 
camels  who  never  lifted  an  eyelid  when  she  raised 
her  voice  to  them,  but  chewed  calmly  on,  with 
faces  turned  impassively  towards  the  New  Jeru- 
salem of  camels,  where  viragoes  are  not;  and  sev- 
eral resigned  asses  who  appeared  to  have  handed 
their  souls  back  to  their  Maker,  because  souls  are 
but  extra  trammels  in  this  place  of  sorrow. 

Next  door  to  them  was  a  regular  tenant  who 
bred  goats,  and  fed  them  out  of  British  biscuit- 
tins.  Beyond  them  the  stable  was  occupied  by  a 
party  of  swarthy  ruffians  who  had  arrived  with 
a  cargo  of  esparto  grass.  In  the  far  corner,  a 
family,  crowded  out,  had  been  living  for  weeks 
under  a  structure  of  horrible  rags.  Smoke,  issu- 
ing from  a  dozen  seams,  gave  their  home  the 
look  of  a  smouldering  manure  heap. 


[42] 


The  African  Coast 


You  probably  know  there  are  place-names 
which,  when  whispered  privately,  have  the  un- 
reasonable power  of  translating  the  spirit  east 
of  the  sun  and  west  of  the  moon.  They  cannot 
be  seen  in  print  without  a  thrill.  The  names  in 
the  atlas  which  do  that  for  me  are  a  motley  lot, 
and  you,  who  see  no  magic  in  them,  but  have  your 
own  lunacy  in  another  phase,  would  laugh  at  mine. 
Celebes,  Acapulco,  Para,  Port  Royal,  Cartagena, 
the  Marquesas,  Panama,  the  Mackenzie  River, 
Tripoli  of  Barbary.  They  are  some  of  mine. 
Rome  should  be  there,  I  know,  and  Athens,  and 
Byzantium.  But  they  are  not,  and  that  is  all 
I  can  say  about  it. 

Why  give  reasons  for  our  preferences?  How 
often  have  our  preferences  any  reason?  Maybe 
some  old  scoundrel  of  an  ancestor  who  made  a 
fortune  (all  lost  since)  as  a  thief  on  the  Spanish 
main,  whispers  Panama  to  me  when  my  mind  is 
tired.  Others  may  make  magic  with  Ostend, 
Biarritz,  or  Ancoats;  and  they  are  just  as  lucky 
as  the  man  who  obtains  the  spell  by  looking  at 
the  Dry  Tortugas  on  the  map. 

When  I  set  out  from  Newport  on  this  voyage, 
I  did  not  expect  to  see  Tripoli  of  Barbary.  We 

[43] 


Old  Junk 

have  never  considered  the  possibility  that  our 
favourite  place-names  really  do  stand  for  stones 
that  have  veritable  shapes  and  smells  under  a  sun 
which  comes  and  goes  daily.  Nor  was  my 
steamer  exactly  the  sort  of  craft  which  could, 
by  the  look  of  her,  ever  attain  to  the  coast  of  Bar- 
bary.  What  would  a  steamer  know  about  it? 
She  would  never  fetch  the  landfall  of  a  dream.  I 
was  not  surprised,  therefore,  when  she  fetched 
Tripoli  quite  wrong;  not  the  place  at  all  for  which 
I  was  looking  on  the  southern  horizon.  But  then, 
she  was  but  taking  crockery  there,  in  crates ;  and 
crockery  is  less  vulnerable,  is  rough  freight,  com- 
pared to  a  fancy.  The  crockery,  however,  got  to 
its  Tripoli  quite  safely. 

We  anchored;  and  there  was  Tripoli,  stand- 
ing round  a  little  bay,  with  its  buildings,  variously 
coloured,  crowded  to  the  west,  and  slender  min- 
arets standing  as  masts  over  the  flat  decks  of  the 
houses.  I  landed  at  a  narrow  water-gate,  and 
the  Turkish  officials  regarded  me  as  though  I  had 
come  to  remove  the  country.  When  I  wished  to 
embark  again,  these  curious  people  in  uniform 
were  even  more  serious  than  when  I  arrived. 
After  a  long  hesitation,  permission  was  given  me 
niggardly  to  leave  Tripoli,  and  my  ship's  boatmen 
pointed  out  the  urgent  need  to  supply  a  certain 

[44] 


The  African  Coast 

rowboat  in  the  bay  with  that  morsel  of  paper. 
To  lose  that  tiny  document  would  have  a  shocking 
result,  for  a  warship  was  in  the  bay  to  support  the 
rowboat.  We  passed  that  warship.  Some  day 
a  hilarious  traveller  will  tear  his  document  into 
fragments,  and  that  warship  will  fire  at  him,  and 
sink.  The  system  here,  a  mere  tabulation  of  fear 
and  suspicion,  those  reflexes  of  evildoers  who 
have  the  best  of  reasons  to  be  jealous  of  their 
neighbours,  is  protective  exclusiveness  in  its  per- 
fect flower,  and  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  be 
really  dead  than  to  live  under  it  as  a  warm,  law- 
abiding  corpse. 

I  should  guess  that,  with  a  slight  magnifica- 
tion to  make  the  object  plainer,  there  are  three 
soldiers  to  each  worker  in  North  Africa.  On 
from  Oran  the  gaudy  fellow  in  uniform  has  been 
very  conspicuous,  the  most  leisured  and  prosper- 
ous of  the  inhabitants,  and  one  came  unwillingly 
to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  more  profitable  to 
smoke  cigarettes  in  a  country  than  to  grow  corn 
in  it.  As  for  Tripoli,  its  uniformed  protectors 
hide  the  protected;  but  perhaps  its  natives  have 
learned  how  to  live  by  killing  one  another.  It  is 
possible  I  have  not  divined  the  more  subtle  ways 
of  God's  providence. 

Tripoli,  like  other  towns  on  these  shores,  looks 

[45] 


Old  Junk 

as  though  it  were  sloughing  away.  Where  stones 
fall,  there  they  lie.  In  the  centre  of  the  town 
is  a  marble  triumphal  arch  in  honour  of  Marcus 
Aurelius.  Age  would  account  for  much  of  its 
ruin,  but  not  all;  yet  it  still  stands  cold,  haughty, 
austere,  though  decrepit,  in  Tripolitan  mud,  with 
mean  stucco  -and  plaster  buildings  about  it.  The 
arch  itself  is  filled  in,  and  is  used  as  a  dwelling. 
Its  tenant  is  a  greengrocer,  and  the  monument  to 
Marcus  Aurelius  has  an  odour  of  garlic;  but  it 
need  not  be  supposed  that  that  was  specially  re- 
pugnant to  me.  How  could  the  white  marble 
of  Marcus,  to  say  nothing  of  a  warmer  philosophy 
no  less  austere,  be  acceptable  to  our  senses  un- 
less translated,  with  a  familiar  odour  of  garlic, 
by  modern  greengrocers?  I  shall  think  more  of 
Tripoli  of  Barbary  in  future,  when  looking  back 
at  it  through  a  middle-aged  pipe,  when  the  chains 
have  got  me  at  last. 

January  1907. 


[46] 


II.     The  Call 

WHEN  the  train  left  me  at  Clayton 
Station,  the  only  passenger  to  alight, 
its  hurried  retreat  down  the  long 
straight  of  converging  metals,  a  rapidly  diminish- 
ing cube,  seemed  to  be  measuring  for  me  the  iso- 
lation of  the  place.  Clayton  appeared  to  be  two 
railway  platforms  and  a  row  of  elms  across  an 
empty  road.  After  the  last  rumble  of  the  train, 
which  had  the  note  of  a  distant  cry  of  derision, 
there  closed  in  the  quiet  of  a  place  where  affairs 
had  not  even  begun.  It  was  raining,  there  was 
a  little  luggage,  I  did  not  know  the  distance  to  the 
village,  and  the  porter  had  disappeared.  A  de- 
fective gutter-spout  overhead  was  the  leaking 
conduit  for  all  the  sounds  and  movement  of  the 
countryside. 

Then  I  saw  a  boy  humped  into  the  shelter  of 
a  shrub  which  leaned  over  the  station  fence.  He 
was  reading.  Before  him  was  a  hand-cart  let- 
tered "  Humphrey  Monk,  Grocer  and  General 
Dealer,  Clayton."  The  boy  wore  spectacles 

[47] 


Old  Junk 

which,  when  he  looked  at  me,  magnified  his  eyes 
so  that  the  lad  seemed  a  luminous  and  disem- 
bodied stare.  I  saw  only  the  projection  of  his 
enlarged  gaze.  He  promised  to  take  my  luggage 
to  Clayton.  I  walked  through  three  miles  of 
steady  rain  to  the  village,  by  a  stretch  of  marsh- 
land so  hushed  by  the  nearness  of  the  draining 
sky  that  the  land  might  have  been  what  it  seemed 
at  a  little  distance:  merely  a  faint  presentment 
of  fields  solvent  in  the  wet.  Its  green  melted  into 
the  outer  grey  at  a  short  distance  where  rows  of 
elms  were  smeared.  There  was  nothing  beyond. 
This  old  village  of  Clayton  is  five  miles  in- 
land from  Clayton-on-Sea,  that  new  and  popular 
resort  hardened  with  asphalt  and  concrete,  to 
which  city  folk  retire  for  a  change  in  the  summer. 
During  the  winter  months  many  of  the  shops  of 
the  big  town  are  closed  till  summer  brings  the 
holiday-makers  again.  The  porticoes  of  the 
abandoned  premises  fill  with  street  litter,  old 
paper,  and  straws.  The  easterly  winds  cut  the 
life  out  of  the  streets,  the  long  ranks  of  automatic 
machines  look  out  across  the  empty  parade,  and 
rust,  and  the  lines  of  the  pier-deck  advance  deso- 
lately far  into  the  wind  and  grey  sea,  straight  and 
uninterrupted.  It  is  more  than  barren  then, 
Clayton-on-Sea,  for  man  has  been  there,  builded 

[48] 


The  Call 

busily  and  even  ornately,  loaded  the  town  with 
structures  for  even  his  minor  whims  in  idleness; 
and  forsaken  it  all.  So  it  will  look  on  the  Last 
Day.  The  advertisements  clamour  pills  and  hair- 
dye  to  a  town  which  seems  as  if  the  Judgment  Day 
has  passed  and  left  the  husk  of  life.  So  I  was 
driven  to  the  original  Clayton,  the  place  which 
gave  the  name,  the  little  inland  village  that  did, 
when  I  found  it,  show  some  signs  of  welcome  life. 
It  was  a  clump  of  white  cottages  in  a  vague  cloud 
of  trees.  It  had  some  chimneys  smoking,  there 
was  a  man  several  fields  away,  and  a  dog  sitting 
in  a  porch  barked  at  me.  Here  was  a  little  of 
the  warmth  of  human  contiguity. 

When  night  came,  and  the  village  was  but  a 
few  chance  and  unrelated  lights,  there  was  the 
choice  between  my  bedroom  and  the  taproom  of 
the  inn  where  I  lodged.  In  the  bedroom,  crown- 
ing a  chest  of  drawers,  was  a  large  Bible,  and  on 
the  wall' just  above  was  a  glass  case  of  shabby  sea- 
birds,  their  eyes  so  placed  that  they  appeared  to 
be  looking  up  from  Holy  Writ  with  a  look  of 
such  fatuous  rapture  that  one's  idea  of  immor- 
tality became  associated  with  bodies  dusty,  stuffed, 
and  wired.  (Oh,  the  wind  and  the  rain!)  Yet 
there  was  left  the  bar-parlour;  and  there,  usually, 
was  a  dim  lamp  showing  but  a  table  with  assorted 

[49] 


Old  Junk 

empty  mugs,  a  bar  with  bottles  and  a  mirror,  but 
nobody  to  serve,  and  a  picture  of  Queen  Victoria 
in  her  coronation  robes. 

There  was  but  one  other  light  in  Clayton  which 
showed  sanctuary  after  dark  for  the  stranger. 
It  was  in  Mr.  Monk's  shop.  His  shop  at  least 
had  its  strange  interests  in  its  revelation  of  the 
diverse  needs  of  civilized  homes,  for  Mr.  Monk 
sold  everything  likely  to  be  wanted  urgently 
enough  by  his  neighbours  to  make  a  journey  to 
greater  Clayton  prohibitive.  In  one  corner  of 
his  shop  a  young  lady  was  caged,  for  it  was  also 
the  post  office.  The  interior  of  the  store  was 
confused  with  boxes,  barrels,  bags,  and  barri- 
cades of  smaller  tins  and  jars,  with  alleys  for  side- 
long progress  between  them.  I  do  not  think  any 
order  ever  embarrassed  Mr.  Monk.  Without 
hesitation  he  would  turn,  sure  of  his  intricate 
world,  from  babies'  dummies  to  kerosene.  There 
were  cards  hanging  from  the  rafters  bearing  briar 
pipes,  bottles  of  lotion  for  the  hair  of  school- 
children, samples  of  sauce,  and  stationery. 

His  shop  had  its  own  native  smell.  It  was 
of  coffee,  spices,  rock-oil,  cheese,  bundles  of  wood, 
biscuits,  and  jute  bags,  and  yet  was  none  of  these 
things,  for  their  separate  flavours  were  so  blended 
by  old  association  that  they  made  one  indivisible 

[JO] 


The  Call 

smell,  peculiar,  but  not  unpleasant,  when  you  were 
used  to  it.  I  found  Mr.  Monk's  barrel  of  soda 
quite  a  cherishable  seat  on  a  dull  night,  for  the 
grocer's  lamp  was  then  the  centre  of  a  very  dark 
world.  Around  it  and  beyond  was  only  the  black- 
ness and  silence  of  vacuity.  And  the  grocer  him- 
self, if  not  busy,  would  give  me  his  casual  and 
valuable  advice  on  the  minor  frailties  of  the  hu- 
man, and  they  seemed  as  engaging  and  confusing 
in  their  directness  as  a  child's;  for  Mr.  Monk 
was  large  and  bland,  with  a  pale,  puffy,  and  un- 
smiling face,  and  only  betrayed  his  irony  with  a 
slow  wink  when  he  was  sure  you  were  not  de- 
ceived. He  knew  much  about  the  gentry  around, 
those  bored  and  weary  youths  in  check  coats,  rid- 
ing breeches,  and  large  pipes,  and  the  young  ladies 
in  pale  homespun  costumes  who  had  rude  and 
familiar  words  to  all  they  judged  were  their  equals, 
and  were  accompanied  invariably  by  Aberdeen 
terriers. 

One  evening  I  spoke  to  Mr.  Monk  of  his  boy. 
The  boy,  I  said,  seemed  a  strange  little  fellow. 
Mr.  Monk,  in  his  soiled,  white  apron,  turned  on 
me,  and  said  nothing  at  first,  but  tapped  his  bald 
head  solemnly.  "  Can't  make  him  out,"  he  said. 
"  I  think  this  is  where  it  is  "  —  and  pressed  a  fat 
thumb  against  his  head  again.  "  But  you  have  to 


Old  Junk 

put  up  with  any  boy  you  can  get  here."  He 
sighed.  "  The  bright  kids  go.  Clear  out. 
There's  nothing  fer  'em  here  but  farm  labour  an' 
the  poor  rate.  I  don't  know  how  the  farmers 
about  here  could  make  a  do  of  it  if  we  didn't  pay 
rates  to  keep  their  labourers  from  dying  off.  My 
boys  get  fed  up.  Off  they  go,  'nd  I  doan'  blame 
'em.  One  of  'em's  in  a  racin'  stable  now,  doin' 
well.  Another's  got  a  potman's  job  London 
somewhere.  Doin'  well.  But  the  kid  I've  got 
now,  he'll  stop.  No  ginger  in  that  boy.  Can't 
see  anything  five  minutes  off,  either.  Must  be 
under  his  nose,  and  your  finger  shouting  at  it. 
He's  got  a  cloudy  mind.  Yet  he's  clever,  in  his 
way.  There's  the  door-mat  of  the  shop.  As 
soon  as  any  one  puts  a  foot  on  that  mat,  the  clock 
in  my  kitchen  strikes  two.  All  his  fake.  But 
he  does  rile  the  customers.  Silly  young  fool. 
If  there's  two  parcels  to  deliver,  it's  the  wrong 
one  gets  first  chance." 

In  a  land  where  discovery  had  not  gone  beyond 
the  blacksmith's  forge  and  the  arable  fields,  a  na- 
tive boy  who  had  turned  a  door-mat  into  a  watch- 
dog was  an  interesting  possibility.  There  the 
boy  was  at  that  moment,  stepping  off  his  respon- 
sive mat,  ill-clad,  the  red  nose  of  his  meagre  face 
almost  as  evident  as  his  magnified  stare  of  sur- 

[52] 


The  Call 

prised  inquiry,  and  his  mouth  open.  Mr.  Monk 
chaffed  him.  I  spoke  with  some  seriousness  to 
him,  but  he  was  shy,  and  gave  no  answer  except 
some  throat  noises.  Yet  presently  he  ceased  to 
rub  a  boot  up  and  down  one  leg,  and  became  ar- 
ticulate. He  mumbled  that  he  knew  the  tele- 
graph instrument  too.  ("Oho!"  said  Mr. 
Monk,  looking  interested.  "  You  do,  do  yer? 
What  about  learning  not  to  leave  Mrs.  Brown's 
parcel  at  Mrs.  Pipkin's?")  Had  I  ever  been  to 
London,  the  boy  asked,  his  big  eyes  full  on  my 
face.  Had  I  ever  seen  a  Marconi  station?  I 
talked  to  him,  perhaps  unwisely,  of  some  of  the 
greater  affairs.  He  said  nothing.  His  mouth 
remained  open  and  his  stare  full-orbed. 

There  was  one  grey,  still  Sunday  when  it  was 
not  raining,  the  grey  sky  being  exhausted,  and  I 
met  the  grocer's  boy  a  little  distance  from  the 
village,  sitting  on  a  fence,  reading.  The  boy 
closed  his  book  when  he  saw  me,  but  not  before 
I  had  noticed  that  the  volume  was  open  at  a 
page  showing  one  of  those  highly  technical  dia- 
grams of  involved  machinery  which  only  the  elect 
may  read.  I  took  the  book  —  it  was  a  manual 
of  civil  engineering  —  and  asked  questions  with 
some  humility;  for  before  the  man  who  under- 
stands the  manipulating  of  metals  and  can  make 

[53] 


Old  Junk 

living  servants  for  himself  out  of  pipes,  wheels, 
and  valves,  I  stand  as  would  a  primitive  or  an  in- 
nocent and  confiding  girl  before  the  magician 
who  interprets  for  them  oracles.  With  the  con- 
fidence of  long  familiarity  and  the  faint  hauteur 
of  shyness  he  explained  some  of  the  diagrams  in 
which,  at  that  moment,  he  was  interested. 

We  talked  of  them,  and  of  Clayton;  for  I 
•  wished  to  know  how  this  grocer's  boy,  who  went 
about  masked  with  a  mouth  open  a  little  fatuously, 
an  insignificant  face,  goggles,  and  a  hand-truck, 
himself  of  no  account  in  a  flat  and  unremarkable 
place  aside  from  the  press  of  life's  affairs,  had 
discovered  there  were  hills  to  which  he  could 
lift  his  eyes  after  those  humiliating  interviews 
with  Mr.  Monk  concerning  the  wrong  delivery 
of  cheese  and  bacon.  I  was  aware  of  the  means 
by  which  news  of  the  outer  world  got  to  Clayton. 
It  came  in  a  popular  halfpenny  paper,  and  that 
outer  world  must  therefore  have  seemed  to  Clay- 
ton to  be  all  aeroplanes,  musical-comedy  girls, 
dog  shows,  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George.  The  grocer's 
boy  got  his  tongue  free  at  last,  and  talked.  He 
was  halt  and  obscure,  but  I  thought  I  saw  a  mind 
beating  against  the  elms  and  stones  of  the  vil- 
lage, and  repelled  by  the  concrete,  asphalt,  and 
lodging-houses  of  the  seaside  place.  But  I  am 

[54] 


The  Call 

impressionable,  too.  It  may  have  been  my  fancy. 
What  the  .boy  finished  with  was :  "  There's  no 
chance  here.  You  never  hear  of  anything." 

You  never  heard  of  anything.  That  country- 
side really  looked  remote  enough  from  the  centre 
of  affairs,  from  the  place  where  men,  undistracted 
by  the  news  and  pictures  of  the  halfpenny  illus- 
trated Press,  were  getting  work  done.  Clayton 
was  deaf  and  dumb.  Some  miles  away  the  smoke 
of  the  London  train  was  streaming  across  the 
dim  fields  like  a  comet.  We  both  stood  watching 
that  comet  going  sure  and  bright  to  its  destiny, 
leaving  Clayton  behind,  regardless  of  us,  and 
as  though  all  we  there  were  nothing  worth.  We 
were  outside  the  pull  of  life's  spinning  hub.  Be- 
yond and  remote  from  us  things  would  be  hap- 
pening; but  no  voice  or  pulse  of  life  could  vibrate 
us,  merged  as  we  were  within  the  inelastic  silence 
of  Clayton. 

We  walked  back  to  the  village,  and  the  boy 
said  good-night,  passing  through  a  white  gate  to 
a  cottage  unseen  at  that  late  hour  of  the  evening. 
Near  midnight  I  left  my  stuffed  birds,  with  their 
fixed  and  upturned  gaze,  and  went  into  the  open, 
where  above  the  shapeless  lumps  of  massive  dark 
of  Clayton  the  stars  were  detaching  their  arrows, 
for  the  night  was  clear  and  frosty  at  last.  Sirius, 

tssl 


Old  Junk 

pulsing  and  resplendent,  seemed  nearer  and  more 
vital  than  anything  in  the  village. 

I  walked  as  far  as  the  white  gate  of  the  cottage 
where  I  had  left  Mr.  Monk's  boy;  and  there  he 
was  again,  to  my  surprise,  at  that  hour.  He 
came  forward.  At  first  he  appeared  to  be  agi- 
tated; but  as  he  talked  brokenly  I  saw  he  was 
exalted.  He  was  no  grocer's  boy  then.  The  lad 
half  dragged  me,  finding  I  did  not  understand 
him,  towards  his  home.  We  went  round  to  the 
back  of  the  sleeping  cottage,  and  found  a  little 
shed.  On  a  bench  in  that  shed  a  candle  was  burn- 
ing in  a  ginger-beer  bottle.  By  the  candle  was  a 
structure  meaningless  to  me,  having  nothing  of 
which  I  could  make  a  guess.  It  was  fragmentary 
and  idle,  the  building  which  a  child  makes  of 
household  utensils,  naming  it  anything  to  its  fancy. 
There  were  old  jam-pots,  brass  door-knobs, 
squares  of  india-rubber,  an  electric  bell,  glass  rods, 
cotton  reels,  and  thin  wires  which  ran  up  to  the 
roof  out  of  sight. 

"  Listen !  "  said  the  grocer's  boy  imperatively, 
holding  up  a  finger.  I  remained  intent  and  sus- 
picious, wondering.  Nothing  happened.  I  was 
turning  to  ask  the  lad  why  I  should  listen,  for  the 
shed  was  very  still,  and  then  I  saw  the  hammer 
of  the  bell  lift  itself,  as  though  alive.  Some 

[56] 


The  Call 

erratic  and  faint  tinkling  began.  "  That's  my 
wireless,"  said  the  grocer's  boy,  his  eyes  extraor- 
dinarily bright.  "  I've  only  just  finished  it. 
Who  is  calling  us  ?  " 


[57] 


III.     Old  Junk 

BUSINESS   had  brought  the   two   of  us 
to  an  inn  on  the  West  Coast,  and  all 
its  windows  opened  on  a  wide  harbour, 
hill-enclosed.     Only    small    coasting    craft    were 
there,  mostly  ketches;  but  we  had  topsail  schoon- 
ers also  and  barquantines,  those  ascending  and 
aerial  rigs  that  would  be  flamboyant  but  for  the 
transverse  spars  of  the  foremast,  giving  one  who 
scans  them  the  proper  apprehension  of  stability 
and  poise. 

To  come  upon  a  craft  rigged  so,  though  at  her 
moorings  and  with  sails  furled,  her  slender  poles 
upspringing  from  the  bright  plane  of  a  brimming 
harbour,  is  to  me  as  rare  and  sensational  a  de- 
light as  the  rediscovery,  when  idling  with  a  book, 
of  a  favourite  lyric.  That  when  she  is  at  anchor ; 
but  to  see  her,  all  canvas  set  for  light  summer 
airs,  at  exactly  that  distance  where  defects  and 
harshness  in  her  apparel  dissolve,  but  not  so  far 
away  but  the  white  feathers  at  her  throat  are 
plain,  is  to  exult  in  the  knowledge  that  man  once 

[58] 


Old  Junk 

reached  such  greatness  that  he  imagined  and  cre- 
ated a  thing  which  was  consonant  with  the  stateli- 
ness  of  the  slow  ranging  of  great  billows,  and  the 
soaring  density  of  white  cumulus  clouds,  and  with 
the  brightness  and  compelling  mystery  of  the  far 
horizon  at  sundown. 

Some  mornings,  when  breakfast-time  came  with 
the  top  of  the  tide,  we  could  look  down  on  the 
plan  of  a  deck  beneath,  with  its  appurtenances 
and  junk,  casks,  houses,  pumps,  and  winches,  rope 
and  spare  spars,  binnacle  and  wheel,  perhaps  a 
boat,  the  regular  deck  seams  curving  and  persist- 
ing under  all.  An  old  collier  ketch  she  might  be, 
with  a  name  perhaps  as  romantic  as  the  Mary 
Ann;  for  the  owners  of  these  little  vessels  delight 
to  honour  their  lady  relatives. 

Away  in  mid-stream  the  Mary  Ann  would  seem 
but  a  trivial  affair,  no  match  for  the  immensities 
about  her,  diminished  by  the  vistas  of  shores  and 
beaches,  and  the  hills.  But  seen  close  under  our 
window  you  understood  why  her  men  would  match 
her,  and  think  it  no  hardihood,  with  gales  and  the 
assaults  of  ponderous  seas.  Her  many  timbers, 
so  well  wrought  as  to  appear,  at  a  distance,  a  del- 
icate and  frail  shape,  are  really  heavy.  Even  in 
so  small  a  craft  as  a  ketch  they  are  massive  enough 
to  surprise  you  into  wondering  at  the  cunning  of 

[59] 


Old  Junk 

shipwrights,  those  artists  who  take  gross  lumps 
of  intractable  timber  and  metal,  and  compel  them 
to  subtle  mouldings  and  soft  grace,  to  an  image 
which  we  know  means  life  that  moves  in  rhythmic 
loveliness. 

Talk  of  the  art  of  book  and  picture  making! 
There  is  an  old  fellow  I  met  in  this  village  who 
will  take  the  ruins  of  a  small  forest,  take  pine 
boles,  metal,  cordage,  and  canvas,  and  without 
plans,  but  from  the  ideal  in  his  eye,  build  you  the 
kind  of  lithe  and  dainty  schooner  that,  with  the 
cadences  of  her  sheer  and  moulding,  and  the 
soaring  of  her  masts,  would  keep  you  by  her  side 
all  day  in  harbour;  build  you  the  kind  of  girded, 
braced,  and  immaculate  vessel,  sound  at  every 
point,  tuned  and  sweet  to  a  precision  that  in  a 
violin  would  make  a  musician  flush  with  inspira- 
tion, a  ship  to  ride,  lissom  and  light,  the  up- 
lifted western  ocean,  and  to  resist  the  violence 
of  vaulting  seas  and  the  drive  of  hurricane.  She 
will  ride  out  of  the  storm  afterwards,  none  to  ap- 
plaud her,  over  the  mobile  hills  travelling  ex- 
press, the  rags  of  her  sails  triumphant  pennants 
in  the  gale,  the  beaten  seas  pouring  from  her 
deck. 

He,  that  modest  old  man,  can  create  such  a 
being  as  that;  and  I  have  heard  visitors  to  this 

[60] 


Old  Junk 

village,  leisured  and  cultured  folk,  whose  own 
creative  abilities  amount  to  no  more  than  the  ar- 
ranging of  some  decorative  art  in  strata  of  merit, 
talk  down  to  the  old  fellow  who  can  think  out  a 
vessel  like  that  after  supper,  and  go  out  after 
breakfast  to  direct  the  laying  of  her  keel  —  talk 
down  to  him,  kindly  enough,  of  course,  and  smil- 
ingly, as  a  "  working  man." 

I  told  you  there  were  two  of  us,  at  this  inn. 
We  met  at  meals.  I  think  he  was  a  commercial 
traveller.  A  tall  young  fellow,  strongly  built,  a 
pleasure  to  look  at;  carefully  dressed,  intelligent, 
with  hard  and  clear  grey  eyes.  He  had  a  ruddy 
but  fastidious  complexion,  though  he  was,  I 
noticed,  a  hearty  and  careless  eater.  He  was  en- 
ergetic and  swift  in  his  movements,  as  though  the 
world  were  easily  read,  and  he  could  come  to 
quick  decisions  and  successful  executions  of  his 
desires.  He  had  no  moments  of  laxity  and  hes- 
itation, even  after  a  breakfast,  on  a  hot  morn- 
ing, too,  of  ham  and  eggs  drenched  in  coffee.  He 
made  me  feel  an  ineffective,  delicate,  and  inferior 
being. 

He  would  bang  out  to  business,  after  break- 
fast and  a  breezy  chat  with  me;  and  I  lapsed,  a 
lazy  and  shameless  idler,  into  the  window,  to 
wonder  among  the  models  outside,  the  fascinating 

[61] 


Old  Junk 

curves  of  ships  and  boats,  as  satisfying  and  as 
personal  to  me  as  music  I  know,  as  the  lilt  of  bal- 
lads and  all  that  minor  rhythm  which  wheels  within 
the  enclosing  harmonies  and  balance  of  stars  and 
suns  in  their  orbits.  Those  forms  of  ships  and 
boats  are  as  satisfying  as  the  lines  which  make 
the  strength  and  swiftness  of  salmon  and  dolphins, 
and  the  ease  of  the  flight  of  birds  with  great 
pinions;  and,  in  a  new  schooner  which  passed  this 
window,  on  her  first  voyage  to  sea  —  a  tall  and 
slender  ship,  a  being  so  radiant  in  the  sun  as  to 
look  an  evanescent  and  immaterial  vision  —  as  in- 
spiring and  awful  as  the  remoteness  of  a  spiritual 
and  lovely  woman. 

"  I  can't  make  out  what  you  see  in  those  craft," 
said  my  companion  one  morning.  "  They're 
mostly  ancient  tubs,  and  at  the  most  they  only 
muck  about  the  coast.  Now  a  P.  &  O.  or  a  Cun- 
arderl  That's  something  to  look  at."  He  was 
looking  down  at  me,  and  there  was  a  trace  of 
contempt  in  his  smile. 

He  was  right  in  a  way.  I  felt  rebuked  and  em- 
barrassed, and  could  not  explain  to  him.  These 
were  the  common  objects  of  the  Channel  after 
all,  old  and  weather-broken,  sea  wagons  from  the 
Cowes  point  of  view,  source  of  alarm  and  wonder 
to  passengers  on  fine  liners  when  they  sight  them 

[62] 


Old  Junk 

beating  stubbornly  against  dirty  winter  weather, 
and  hanging  on  to  the  storm.  Why  should  they 
take  my  interest  more  than  battleships  and  Cun- 
arders?  Yet  I  could  potter  about  an  ancient 
hooker  or  a  tramp  steamer  all  day,  when  I 
wouldn't  cross  a  quay  to  a  great  battleship.  I 
like  the  pungent  smells  of  these  old  craft,  just  as 
I  inhale  the  health  and  odour  of  fir  woods.  I 
love  their  men,  those  genuine  mariners,  the  right 
diviners  of  sky,  coast,  and  tides,  who  know  exactly 
what  their  craft  will  do  in  any  combination  of 
circumstances  as  well  as  you  know  the  pockets  of 
your  old  coat;  men  who  can  handle  a  stiff  and 
cranky  lump  of  patched  timbers  and  antique  gear 
as  artfully  as  others  would  the  clever  length  of 
hollow  steel  with  its  powerful  twin  screws. 

But  when  my  slightly  contemptuous  companion 
spoke  I  had  no  answer,  felt  out  of  date  and  dull, 
a  fogey  and  an  idle  man.  I  had  no  answer 
ready  —  none  that  would  have  satisfied  this  brisk 
young  man,  none  that  would  not  have  seemed  re- 
mote and  trivial  to  him. 

He  left  me.  Some  other  visitor  had  left  be- 
hind Stevenson's  Ebb  Tide,  and  trying  to  think 
out  an  excuse  that  would  quiet  the  qualms  I  began 
to  feel  for  this  idle  preference  of  mine  for  old 
junk,  I  began  picking  out  the  passages  I  liked. 


Old  Junk 

And  then  I  came  on  these  words  of  Attwater's 
(though  Stevenson,  for  certain,  is  speaking  for 
himself):  "Junk  .  .  .  only  old  junk!  .  .  . 
Nothing  so  affecting  as  ships.  The  ruins  of  an 
empire  would  leave  me  frigid,  when  a  bit  of  an 
old  rail  that  an  old  shellback  had  leaned  on  in  the 
middle  watch  would  bring  me  up  all  standing." 


[64] 


IV.     Bed-Books  and  Night- 
Lights 

THE  rain  flashed  across  the  midnight 
window  with  a  myriad  feet.  There  was 
a  groan  in  outer  darkness,  the  voice  of 
all  nameless  dreads.  The  nervous  candle-flame 
shuddered  by  my  bedside.  The  groaning  rose  to 
a  shriek,  and  the  little  flame  jumped  in  a  panic, 
and  nearly  left  its  white  column.  Out  of  the 
corners  of  the  room  swarmed  the  released 
shadows.  Black  spectres  danced  in  ecstasy  over 
my  bed.  I  love  fresh  air,  but  I  cannot  allow  it  to 
slay  the  shining  and  delicate  body  of  my  little 
friend  the  candle-flame,  the  comrade  who  ven- 
tures with  me  into  the  solitudes  beyond  midnight. 
I  shut  the  window. 

They  talk  of  the  candle-power  of  an  electric 
bulb.  What  do  they  mean?  It  cannot  have  the 
faintest  glimmer  of  the  real  power  of  my  candle. 
It  would  be  as  right  to  express,  in  the  same  in- 
verted and  foolish  comparison,  the  worth  of 
"  those  delicate  sisters,  the  Pleiades."  That 

[65] 


Old  Junk 

pinch  of  star  dust,  the  Pleiades,  exquisitely  re- 
mote in  deepest  night,  in  the  profound  where  light 
all  but  fails,  has  not  the  power  of  a  sulphur 
match;  yet,  still  apprehensive  to  the  mind  though 
tremulous  on  the  limit  of  vision,  and  sometimes 
even  vanishing,  it  brings  into  distinction  those  dis- 
tant and  difficult  hints  —  hidden  far  behind  all 
our  verified  thoughts  —  which  we  rarely  properly 
view.  I  should  like  to  know  of  any  great  arc- 
lamp  which  could  do  that.  So  the  star-like 
candle  for  me.  No  other  light  follows  so  in- 
timately an  author's  most  ghostly  suggestion. 
We  sit,  the  candle  and  I,  in  the  midst  of  the 
shades  we  are  conquering,  and  sometimes  look  up 
from  the  lucent  page  to  contemplate  the  dark 
hosts  of  the  enemy  with  a  smile  before  they  over- 
whelm us;  as  they  will,  of  course.  Like  me,  the 
candle  is  mortal;  it  will  burn  out. 

As  the  bed-book  itself  should  be  a  sort  of  night- 
light,  to  assist  its  illumination,  coarse  lamps  are 
useless.  They  would  douse  the  book.  The  light 
for  such  a  book  must  accord  with  it.  It  must  be, 
like  the  book,  a  limited,  personal,  mellow,  and 
companionable  glow;  the  solitary  taper  beside  the 
only  worshipper  in  a  sanctuary.  That  is  why 
nothing  can  compare  with  the  intimacy  of  candle- 

[66] 


Bed-Books  and  Night-Lights 

light  for  a  bed-book.  It  is  a  living  heart,  bright 
and  warm  in  central  night,  burning  for  us  alone, 
holding  the  gaunt  and  towering  shadows  at  bay. 
There  the  monstrous  spectres  stand  in  our  mid- 
night room,  the  advance  guard  of  the  darkness  of 
the  world,  held  off  by  our  valiant  little  glim,  but 
ready  to  flood  instantly  and  founder  us  in  original 
gloom. 

The  wind  moans  without;  ancient  evils  are  at 
large  and  wandering  in  torment.  The  rain 
shrieks  across  the  window.  For  a  moment,  for 
just  a  moment,  the  sentinel  candle  is  shaken,  and 
burns  blue  with  terror.  The  shadows  leap  out 
instantly.  The  little  flame  recovers,  and  merely 
looks  at  its  foe  the  darkness,  and  back  to  its  own 
place  goes  the  old  enemy  of  light  and  man.  The 
candle  for  me,  tiny,  mortal,  warm,  and  brave,  a 
golden  lily  on  a  silver  stem ! 

"  Almost  any  book  does  for  a  bed-book,"  a 
woman  once  sa;d  to  me.  I  nearly  replied  in  a 
hurry  that  almost  any  woman  would  do  for  a 
wife;  but  that  is  not  the  way  to  bring  people  to 
conviction  of  sin.  Her  idea  was  that  the  bed- 
book  is  a  soporific,  and  for  that  reason  she  even 
advocated  the  reading  of  political  speeches. 
That  would  be  a  dissolute  act.  Certainly  you 
would  go  to  sleep ;  but  in  what  a  frame  of  mind ! 

[67] 


Old  Junk 

You  would  enter  into  sleep  with  your  eyes  shut.  It 
would  be  like  dying,  not  only  unshriven,  but  in 
the  act  of  guilt. 

What  book  shall  it  shine  upon?  Think  of 
Plato,  or  Dante,  or  Tolstoy,  or  a  Blue  Book  for 
such  an  occasion!  I  cannot.  They  will  not  do 
—  they  are  no  good  to  me.  I  am  not  writing 
about  you.  I  know  those  men  I  have  named  are 
transcendent,  the  greater  lights.  But  I  am 
bound  to  confess  at  times  they  bore  me.  Though 
their  feet  are  clay  and  on  earth,  just  as  ours, 
their  stellar  brows  are  sometimes  dim  in  remote 
clouds.  For  my  part,  they  are  too  big  for  bed- 
fellows. I  cannot  see  myself,  carrying  my  feeble 
and  restricted  glim,  following  (in  pyjamas)  the 
statuesque  figure  of  the  Florentine  where  it  stalks, 
aloof  in  its  garb  of  austere  pity,  the  sonorous 
deeps  of  Hades.  Hades!  Not  for  me;  not 
after  midnight!  Let  those  go  who  like  it. 

As  for  the  Russian,  vast  and  disquieting,  I 
refuse  to  leave  all,  including  the  blankets  and  the 
pillow,  to  follow  him  into  the  gelid  tranquillity  of 
the  upper  air,  where  even  the  colours  are  pris- 
matic spicules  of  ice,  to  brood  upon  the  erratic 
orbit  of  the  poor  mud-ball  below  called  earth.  I 
know  it  is  my  world  also;  but  I  cannot  help  that. 
It  is  too  late,  after  a  busy  day,  and  at  that  hour,  to 

[68] 


Bed-Books  and  Night-Lights 

begin  overtime  on  fashioning  a  new  and  better 
planet  out  of  cosmic  dust.  By  breakfast-time, 
nothing  useful  would  have  been  accomplished. 
We  should  all  be  where  we  were  the  night  before. 
The  job  is  far  too  long,  once  the  pillow  is  nicely 
set. 

For  the  truth  is,  there  are  times  when  we  are 
too  weary  to  remain  attentive  and  thankful  under 
the  improving  eye,  kindly  but  severe,  of  the  seers. 
There  are  times  when  we  do  not  wish  to  be  any 
better  than  we  are.  We  do  not  wish  to  be 
elevated  and  improved.  At  midnight,  away 
with  such  books!  As  for  the  literary  pundits, 
the  high  priests  of  the  Temple  of  Letters,  it  is 
interesting  and  helpful  occasionally  for  an  acolyte 
to  swinge  them  a  good  hard  one  with  an  incense- 
burner,  and  cut  and  run,  for  a  change,  to  some- 
thing outside  the  rubrics.  Midnight  is  the 
time  when  one  can  recall,  with  ribald  delight,  the 
names  of  all  the  Great  Works  which  every  gentle- 
man ought  to  have  read,  but  which  some  of  us 
have  not.  For  there  is  almost  as  much  clotted 
nonsense  written  about  literature  as  there  is  about 
theology. 

There  are  few  books  which  go  with  midnight, 
solitude,  and  a  candle.  It  is  much  easier  to  say 

[69] 


Old  Junk 

what  does  not  please  us  then  than  what  is  ex- 
actly right.  The  book  must  be,  anyhow,  some- 
thing benedictory  by  a  sinning  fellow-man.  Clev- 
erness would  be  repellent  at  such  an  hour.  Clev- 
erness, anyhow,  is  the  level  of  mediocrity  today; 
we  are  all  too  infernally  clever.  The  first  witty 
and  perverse  paradox  blows  out  the  candle. 
Only  the  sick  in  mind  crave  cleverness,  as  a  mor- 
bid body  turns  to  drink.  The  late  candle  throws 
its  beams  a  great  distance;  and  its  rays  make 
transparent  much  that  seemed  massy  and  impor- 
tant. The  mind  at  rest  beside  that  light,  when 
the  house  is  asleep,  and  the  consequential  affairs 
of  the  urgent  world  have  diminished  to  their 
right  proportions  because  we  see  them  distantly 
from  another  and  a  more  tranquil  place  in  the 
heavens  where  duty,  honour,  witty  arguments, 
controversial  logic  on  great  questions,  appear  such 
as  will  leave  hardly  a  trace  of  fossil  in  the  in- 
durated mud  which  presently  will  cover  them  — 
the  mind  then  certainly  smiles  at  cleverness. 

For  though  at  that  hour  the  body  may  be  dog- 
tired,  the  mind  is  white  and  lucid,  like  that  of  a 
man  from  whom  a  fever  has  abated.  It  is  bare 
of  illusions.  It  has  a  sharp  focus,  small  and  star- 
like,  as  a  clear  and  lonely  flame  left  burning  by 
the  altar  of  a  shrine  from  which  all  have  gone 

[70] 


Bed-Books  and  Night-Lights 

but  one.  A  book  which  approaches  that  light 
in  the  privacy  of  that  place  must  come,  as  it  were, 
with  honest  and  open  pages. 

I  like  Heine  then,  though.  His  mockery  of 
the  grave  and  great,  in  those  sentences  which  are 
as  brave  as  pennants  in  a  breeze,  is  comfortable 
and  sedative.  One's  own  secret  and  awkward 
convictions,  never  expressed  because  not  lawful 
and  because  it  is  hard  to  get  words  to  bear  them 
lightly,  seem  then  to  be  heard  aloud  in  the  mild, 
easy,  and  confident  diction  of  an  immortal  whose 
voice  has  the  blitheness  of  one  who  has  watched, 
amused  and  irreverent,  the  high  gods  in  eager 
and  secret  debate  on  the  best  way  to  keep  the  gilt 
and  trappings  on  the  body  of  the  evil  they  have 
created. 

That  first-rate  explorer,  Gulliver,  is  also  fine  in 
the  light  of  the  intimate  candle.  Have  you  .read 
lately  again  his  Voyage  to  the  Houyhnhnms? 
Try  it  alone  again  in  quiet.  Swift  knew  all  about 
our  contemporary  troubles.  He  has  got  it  all 
down.  Why  was  he  called  a  misanthrope? 
Reading  that  last  voyage  of  Gulliver  in  the  select 
intimacy  of  midnight  I  am  forced  to  wonder,  not 
at  Swift's  hatred  of  mankind,  not  at  his  satire  of 
his  fellows,  not  at  the  strange  and  terrible  nature 

[70 


Old  Junk 

of  this  genius  who  thought  that  much  of  us,  but 
how  it  is  that  after  such  a  wise  and  sorrowful 
revealing  of  the  things  we  insist  on  doing,  and 
our  reasons  for  doing  them,  and  what  happens 
after  we  have  done  them,  men  do  not  change. 
It  does  seem  impossible  that  society  could  remain 
unaltered,  after  the  surprise  its  appearance  should 
have  caused  it  as  it  saw  its  face  in  that  ruthless 
mirror.  We  point  instead  to  the  fact  that  Swift 
lost  his  mind  in  the  end.  Well,  that  is  not  a 
matter  for  surprise. 

Such  books,  and  France's  Isle  of  Penguins,  are 
not  disturbing  as  bed-books.  They  resolve  one's 
agitated  and  outraged  soul,  relieving  it  with  some 
free  expression  for  the  accusing  and  questioning 
thoughts  engendered  by  the  day's  affairs.  But 
they  do  not  rest  immediately  to  hand  in  the  book- 
shelf by  the  bed.  They  depend  on  the  kind  of 
day  one  has  had.  Sterne  is  closer.  One  would 
rather  be  transported  as  far  as  possible  from  all 
the  disturbances  of  earth's  envelope  of  clouds, 
and  Tristram  Shandy  is  s,ure  to  be  found  in  the 
sun. 

But  best  of  all  books  for  midnight  are  travel 
books.  Once  I  was  lost  every  night  for  months 
with  Doughty  in  the  Arabia  Deserta.  He  is  a 
craggy  author.  A  long  course  of  the  ordinary 

[72] 


Bed-Books  and  Night-Lights 

facile  stuff,  such  as  one  gets  in  the  Press  every 
day,  thinking  it  is  English,  sends  one  thoughtless 
and  headlong  among  the  bitter  herbs  and  stark 
boulders  of  Doughty's  burning  and  spacious  ex- 
panse; only  to  get  bewildered,  and  the  shins 
broken,  and  a  great  fatigue  at  first,  in  a  strange 
land  of  fierce  sun,  hunger,  glittering  spar,  ancient 
plutonic  rock,  and  very  Adam  himself.  But  once 
you  are  acclimatized,  and  know  the  language  —  it 
takes  time  —  there  is  no  more  London  after  dark, 
till,  a  wanderer  returned  from  a  forgotten  land, 
you  emerge  from  the  interior  of  Arabia  on  the 
Red  Sea  coast  again,  feeling  as  though  you  had 
lost  touch  with  the  world  you  used  to  know.  And 
if  that  doesn't  mean  good  writing  I  know  of  no 
other  test. 

Because  once  there  was  a  father  whose  habit 
it  was  to  read  with  his  boys  nightly  some  chapters 
of  the  Bible  —  and  cordially  they  hated  that 
habit  of  his  —  I  have  that  Book  too;  though  I 
fear  I  have  it  for  no  reason  that  he,  the  rigid 
old  faithful,  would  be  pleased  to  hear  about.  He 
thought  of  the  future  when  he  read  the  Bible;  I 
read  it  for  the  past.  The  familiar  names,  the 
familiar  rhythm  of  its  words,  its  wonderful  well- 
remembered  stories  of  things  long  past,  —  like 
that  of  Esther,  one  of  the  best  in  English,  —  the 

[73] 


Old  Junk 

eloquent  anger  of  the  prophets  for  the  people 
then  who  looked  as  though  they  were  alive,  but 
were  really  dead  at  heart,  all  is  solace  and  home 
to  me.  And  now  I  think  of  it,  it  is  our  home  and 
solace  that  we  want  in  a  bed-book. 


[74] 


V.     Transfiguration 

THERE  it  is,  thirty  miles  wide  between 
the  horns  of  the  land,  a  bay  opening 
north-west  upon  the  Atlantic,  with  a  small 
island  in  the  midst  of  the  expanse,  a  heap  of 
sundered  granite  lying  upon  the  horizon  like  a 
faint  sunken  cloud,  like  the  floating  body  of  a 
whale,  like  an  area  of  opalescent  haze,  like  an 
inexplicable  brightness  at  sea  when  no  island  can 
be  seen.  The  apparition  of  that  island  depends 
upon  the  favour  of  the  sun.  The  island  is  only  a 
ghost  there,  sometimes  invisible,  sometimes  but 
an  alluring  and  immaterial  fragment  of  the  coast 
we  see  far  over  the  sea  in  dreams;  a  vision  of 
sanctuary,  of  the  place  we  shall  never  reach,  a 
frail  mirage  of  land  then,  a  roseous  spot  which  is 
not  set  in  the  sea,  but  floats  there  only  while 
the  thought  of  a  haven  of  peace  and  secure  veri- 
ties is  still  in  the  mind,  and  while  the  longing  eye 
projects  it  on  the  horizon. 

The  sun  sets  behind  the  island.     On  a  clear 

[75] 


Old  Junk 

day,  at  sundown,  the  island  behaves  so  much  like 
a  lump  of  separated  earth,  a  piece  of  the  black 
world  we  know,  that  I  can  believe  it  is  land, 
something  to  be  found  on  the  map,  a  place  where 
I  could  get  ashore,  after  toil  and  adventures.  At 
sundown  a  low  yellow  planet  marks  its  hiding- 
place. 

If  the  island  in  the  bay  is  usually  but  a  coloured 
thought  in  the  mind,  a  phantom  and  an  unattain- 
able refuge  by  day,  and  a  star  by  night,  the  real 
coast  which  stretches  seaward  to  it,  marching  on 
either  hand  into  the  blue,  confident  and  tall,  is 
hardly  more  material,  except  by  the  stones  of  my 
outlook.  The  near  rocks  are  of  indubitable 
earth. 

Beyond  them  the  coloured  fabric  of  the  bay 
becomes  diaphanous,  and  I  can  but  wonder  at  the 
permanence  of  such  a  coast  in  this  wind,  for  in  it 
the  delicate  cliffs  and  the  frail  tinted  fields  inclined 
above  them  seem  to  tremble,  as  though  they  would 
presently  collapse  and  tear  from  their  places  and 
stream  inland  as  torn  flimsies  and  gossamer. 

It  is  the  sublimation  of  earth. '  Our  own 
shining  globe  floats  with  the  others  in  a  sea  of 
light.  Here  in  the  bay  on  a  September  morning, 
if  our  world  till  then  had  been  without  life  and 
voice,  with  this  shine  that  is  an  impalpable  dust  of 

[76] 


Transfiguration 

gold,  the  quickened  air,  and  the  seas  moving  as 
though  joyous  in  the  first  dawn,  Eros  and  Aurora 
would  have  known  the  moment,  and  a  child  would 
have  been  born. 

None  but  the  transcendent  and  mounting  quali- 
ties of  our  elements,  and  the  generative  day  which 
makes  the  surf  dazzling,  and  draws  the  passionate 
azure  of  the  bugloss  from  hot  and  arid  sand,  and 
makes  the  blobs  of  sea-jelly  in  the  pools  expand 
like  flowers,  and  ripens  the  clouds,  nothing  but 
the  indestructible  essence  of  life,  life  uplifted  and 
dominant,  shows  now  in  this  world  of  the  bay. 

Below  the  high  moors  which  enclose  the  bay, 
those  distant  sleepy  uplands  where  the  keels  of 
the  cumulus  clouds  are  grounded,  there  are  saline 
meadows,  lush  and  warm,  where  ditches  serpen- 
tine between  barriers  of  meadowsweet,  briers 
and  fat  grasses.  Nearer  to  the  sea  the  levels  are 
of  moist  sand  covered  with  a  close  matting  of 
thyme,  and  herbage  as  close  and  resilient  as  moss, 
levels  that  are  not  green,  like  fields,  but  golden, 
and  of  a  texture  that  reflects  the  light,  so  that 
these  plains  seem  to  have  their  own  brightness. 

The  sea  plains  finish  in  the  sandhills.  In  this 
desert  you  may  press  a  hand  into  the  body  of 
earth,  and  feel  its  heat  and  pulse.  The  west  wind 
pours  among  the  dunes,  a  warm  and  heavy  torrent. 

[77] 


Old  Junk 

There  is  no  need  to  make  a  miracle  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  life  on  our  earth.  Life  was  at  the 
happy  incidence  of  the  potent  elements  on  such  a 
strand  as  this.  Aphrodite  was  no  myth.  Our 
mother  here  gave  birth  to  her. 

The  sea  is  kept  from  the  dunes  by  a  high  ridge 
of  blue  water-worn  pebbles,  and  beyond  the 
pebbles  at  low  water  is  the  wet  strand  over  which 
she  came  wading  to  give  the  earth  children  in 
her  own  likeness.  The  Boy  and  Miss  Muffet 
beside  me  are  no  surprise.  They  are  proper  to 
the  place.  The  salt  water  and  the  sand  are  still 
on  their  brown  limbs,  and  in  the  Boy's  serious  eyes 
and  Miss  Muffet's  smile  there  is  something  out- 
side my  knowledge;  but  I  know  that  in  the  depth 
of  that  mystery  is  security  and  content. 

There  is  a  fear  I  have,  though,  when  they  trip 
it  over  the  solid  and  unquestionable  stones,  and 
leave  the  stones  to  fly  off  into  the  wind  down  that 
shining  entrance  to  the  deep.  For  the  strand  has 
no  substance.  Their  feet  move  over  a  void  in 
which  far  down  I  see  another  sky  than  ours. 
They  go  where  I  doubt  that  I  can  follow.  I  can- 
not leave  my  hold  upon  the  rocks  and  enter  the 
place  to  which  their  late  and  aerial  spirits  are 
native.  It  is  plain  the  earth  is  not  a  solid  body. 
As  their  bodies,  moving  over  the  bright  vacuity, 

[78] 


Transfiguration 

grow  unsubstantial  and  elfin  with  distance,  and 
they  approach  that  line  where  the  surf  glimmers 
athwart  the  radiant  void,  I  have  a  sudden  fear 
that  they  may  vanish  quite,  and  only  their  laughter 
come  at  me  mockingly  from  the  near  invisible  air. 
They  will  have  gone  back  to  their  own  place. 


[79] 


VI..    The  Pit  Mouth 

THERE  was  Great  Barr,  idle,  still,  and 
quiet.  Through  the  Birmingham  sub- 
urbs, out  into  the  raw,  bleak  winter  roads 
between  the  hedges,  quite  beyond  the  big  town 
smoking  with  its  enterprising  labours,  one  ap- 
proached the  village  of  calamity  with  some  awe 
and  diffidence.  You  felt  you  were  intruding; 
that  you  were  a  mere  gross  interloper,  coming 
through  curiosity,  that  was  not  excused  by  the 
compunction  you  felt,  to  see  the  appearance  of  a 
place  that  had  tragedy  in  nearly  all  its  homes. 
Young  men  streamed  by  on  bicycles  in  the  same 
direction,  groups  were  hurrying  there  on  foot. 

The  road  rose  in  a  mound  to  let  the  railway 
under,  and  beyond  the  far  dip  was  the  village, 
an  almost  amorphous  group  of  mean  red  dwell- 
ings stuck  on  ragged  fields  about  the  dominant 
colliery  buildings.  Three  high,  slim  chimneys 
were  leisurely  pouring  smoke  from  the  grotesque 
black  skeleton  structures  above  the  pits.  The 
road  ran  by  the  boundary,  and  was  packed  with 

[80] 


The  Pit  Mouth 

people,  all  gazing  absorbed  and  quiet  into  the 
grounds  of  the  colliery;  they  were  stacked  up  the 
hedge  banks,  and  the  walls  and  trees  were  loaded 
with  boys. 

A  few  empty  motor-cars  of  the  colliery  direc- 
tors stood  about.  A  carriage-horse  champed  its 
bit,  and  the  still  watchers  turned  at  once  to  that 
intrusive  sound.  Around  us,  a  lucid  winter 
landscape  (for  it  had  been  raining)  ran  to  the 
distant  encompassing  hills  which  lifted  like  low 
ramparts  of  cobalt  and  amethyst  to  a  sky  of  lu- 
minous saffron  and  ice-green,  across  which  leaden 
clouds  were  moving.  The  country  had  that  hard, 
coldly  radiant  appearance  which  always  impresses 
a  sad  man  as  this  world's  frank  expression  of  its 
alien  disregard;  this  world  not  his,  on  which  he 
has  happened,  and  must  endure  with  his  trouble 
for  a  brief  time. 

As  I  went  through  the  press  of  people  to  the 
colliery  gates,  the  women  in  shawls  turned  to  me, 
first  with  annoyance  that  their  watching  should 
be  disturbed,  and  then  with  some  dull  interest. 
My  assured  claim  to  admittance  probably  made 
them  think  I  was  the  bearer  of  new  help  outside 
their  little  knowledge;  and  they  willingly  made 
room  for  me  to  pass.  I  felt  exactly  like  the  in- 
terfering fraud  I  was.  What  would  I  not  have 

[81] 


given  then  to  be  made,  for  a  brief  hour,  a  name- 
less miracle-worker. 

In  the  colliery  itself  was  the  same  seeming 
apathy.  There  was  nothing  to  show  in  that  yard, 
black  with  soddened  cinders  and  ash  muck,  where 
the  new  red-brick  engine-houses  stood,  that  some- 
where half  a  mile  beneath  our  feet  were  thirty 
men,  their  only  exit  to  the  outer  world  barred  by 
a  subterranean  fire.  Nothing  showed  of  the  fire 
but  a  whitish  smoke  from  a  ventilating  shaft;  and 
a  stranger  would  not  know  what  that  signified. 
But  the  women  did.  Wet  with  the  rain  showers, 
they  had  been  standing  watching  that  smoke  all 
night,  and  were  watching  it  still,  for  its  unceasing 
pour  to  diminish.  Constant  and  unrelenting,  it 
streamed  steadily  upward,  as  though  it  drew  its 
volume  from  central  fires  that  would  never  cease. 

The  doors  of  the  office  were  thrown  open,  and 
three  figures  emerged.  They  broke  into  the  list- 
lessness  of  that  dreary  place,  where  nothing 
seemed  to  be  going  on,  with  a  sudden  real  pur- 
pose, fast  but  unhurried,  and  moved  towards  the 
shaft.  Three  Yorkshire  rescue  experts  —  one  of 
them  to  die  later  —  with  the  Hamstead  manager 
explaining  the  path  they  should  follow  below  with 
eager  seriousness.  "  Figures  of  fun  " !  They 
had  muzzles  on  their  mouths  and  noses,  goggles 

[82] 


The  Pit  Mouth 

on  their  eyes,  fantastic  helms,  and  queer  cyl- 
inders and  bags  slung  about  them.  As  they 
went  up  the  slope  of  wet  ash,  quick  and  full  of 
purpose,  their  comical  gear  and  coarse  dress  be- 
came suddenly  transfigured;  and  the  silent  crowd 
cheered  emotionally  that  little  party  of  forlorn 
hope. 

They  entered  the  cage,  and  down  they  went. 
Still  it  was  difficult  for  me  to  think  that  we  were 
fronting  tragedy,  for  no  danger  showed.  An 
hour  and  more  passed  in  nervous  and  dismal  wait- 
ing. There  was  a  signal.  Some  men  ran  to  the 
pit-head  carrying  hot  bricks  and  blankets.  The 
doctors  took  off  their  coats,  and  arranged  bottles 
and  tinkling  apparatus  on  chairs  stuck  in  the  mud. 
The  air  smelt  of  iodoform.  A  cloth  was  laid  on 
the  ground  from  the  shaft  to  the  engine-house, 
and  stretchers  were  placed  handy.  The  women, 
some  carrying  infants,  broke  rank.  That  quickly 
up-running  rope  was  bringing  the  first  news. 
The  rope  stopped  running  and  the  cage  appeared. 
Only  the  rescue  party  came  out,  one  carrying  a 
moribund  cat.  They  knew  nothing;  and  the 
white-faced  women,  with  hardly  repressed  hys- 
teria, took  again  their  places  by  the  engine-house. 
So  we  passed  that  day,  watching  the  place  from 
which  came  nothing  but  disappointment.  Oc- 

[83] 


Old  Junk 

casionally  a  child,  too  young  to  know  it  was  adding 
to  its  mother's  grief,  would  wail  querulously. 
There  came  a  time  when  I  and  all  there  knew  that 
to  go  down  that  shaft  was  to  meet  with  death. 
The  increasing  exhaustion  and  pouring  sweat  of 
the  returning  rescue  parties  showed  that.  Yet  the 
miners  who  were  not  selected  to  go  down  were 
angry;  they  violently  abused  the  favouritism  of 
the  officials  who  would  not  let  all  risk  their  lives. 
I  have  a  new  regard  for  my  fellows  since  Great 
Barr.  About  you  and  me  there  are  men  like  that. 
There  is  nothing  to  distinguish  them.  They  show 
no  signs  of  greatness.  They  have  common  talk. 
They  have  coarse  ways.  They  walk  with  an  ugly 
lurch.  Their  eyes  are  not  eager.  They  are  not 
polite.  Their  clothes  are  dirty.  They  live  in 
cheap  houses  on  cheap  food.  They  call  you 
"  sir."  They  are  the  great  unwashed,  the  mut- 
able many,  the  common  people.  The  common 
people !  Greatness  is  as  common  as  that.  There 
are  not  enough  honours  and  decorations  to  go 
round.  Talk  of  the  soldier !  Vale  to  Welsby  of 
Normanton!  He  was  a  common  miner.  He  is 
dead.  His  fellows  were  in  danger,  their  wives 
were  white-faced  and  their  children  were  crying, 
and  he  buckled  on  his  harness  and  went  to  the 
assault  with  no  more  thought  for  self  than  great 

[84] 


The  Pit  Mouth 

men  have  in  a  great  cause;  and  he  is  dead.  I  saw 
him  go  to  his  death.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  of 
Welsby  of  Normanton. 

I  left  that  place  where  the  star-shine  was  show- 
ing the  grim  skeleton  of  the  shaft-work  overhead 
in  the  night,  and  where  men  moved  about  below  in 
the  indeterminate  dark  like  dismal  gnomes. 
There  was  a  woman  whose  cry,  when  Welsby  died, 
was  like  a  challenge. 

Next  morning,  in  Great  Barr,  some  blinds 
were  down,  the  street  was  empty.  Children, 
who  could  see  no  reason  about  them  why  their 
fathers  should  not  return  as  usual,  were  playing 
foot-ball  by  the  tiny  church.  A  group  of  women 
were  still  gazing  at  the  grotesque  ribs  and  legs 
of  the  pit-head  staging  as  though  it  were  a 
monster  without  ruth. 

November 


[8s] 


VII.     Initiation 

AS  to  what  the  Boy  will  become,  that  is 
still  with  his  stars;  and  though  once  we 
thought  he  was  much  impressed  by  the 
dignity  of  the  man  controlling  a  road  roller,  for  it 
seemed  it  would  be  well  to  be  that  slow  herald  in 
front  with  a  little  red  flag,  he  has  shown  but  the 
faintest  regard  for  the  offices  of  policeman,  engine- 
driver,  and  soldier.  It  is  clear  there  is  but  one 
good  thing  left  for  his  choice,  and  so  the  house  is 
littered  with  drawings  of  ships.  There  has  been 
some  advance  from  that  early  affair  of  black 
angles  which,  without  explanation,  might  have 
stood  for  anything,  but  was  meant  for  a  cutter. 
Now,  in  a  manner  which  a  careless  visitor  could 
think  was  the  hauteur  of  an  artist  who  is  too  sure 
of  himself  to  care  what  you  think  of  his  work,  but 
is  really  acute  shyness,  he  will  present  you  at  short 
notice  with  a  sketch  in  colours  of  a  topsail 
schooner  beating  off  a  lee  shore,  if  your  variety 
of  beard  does  not  rouse  his  suspicion.  As  art, 
such  paintings  have  their  faults;  but  as  delinea- 

[86] 


Initiation 

tions  of  that  sort  of  ship  they  have  technical 
exactitude  not  common  even  in  the  studios. 

In  fact,  he  has  found  an  old  manual  of  seaman- 
ship, and  the  illustrations  get  more  attention  than 
some  people  give  to  Biblical  subjects.  During 
vacant  afternoons  there  is  an  uncanny  calm  in  the 
house,  a  silence  which  makes  people  think  they 
have  forgotten  something  important ;  but  it  is  only 
that  the  Boy  is  absent  with  the  argonauts.  He 
is  in  tow  of  Argo,  as  it  were,  one  of  its  heroes, 
surging  astern  in  a  large  easy-chair,  viewing 
golden  landfalls  that  are  still  under  their  early 
spell  in  seas  that  ships  have  never  sailed.  There 
are  no  such  voyages  in  later  life,  none  with  quite 
that  glamour,  for  we  have  tried  and  know. 
Lucky  Boy,  sailing  the  greatest  voyage  of  his  life  I 
Occasionally,  when  a  real  ship  is  home  again,  and 
some  one  calls  to  see  if  we  still  live  there,  the  Boy 
is  allowed  to  go  to  bed  late,  and  there  he  sits  and 
fills  his  mind. 

"  And  what,"  said  this  deponent  one  evening, 
"about  taking  His  Nibs  with  me?"  (There 
was  some  sea  to  be  crossed.)  Most  certainly 
not !  Well  — !  still  — !  Would  he  be  all  right  ? 
But  as  he  got  to  hear  about  this  it  was  hardly  so 
certainly  not  as  it  seemed.  There  are  times 
when  he  can  concentrate  on  a  subject  with  awful 

[87] 


Old  Junk 

pertinacity,  though  the  occasions  are  infrequent. 
This  was  one,  however.  He  went.  I  knew  he 
would  go  —  when  he  heard  about  it. 

A  day  came  when  we  were  at  the  railway  sta- 
tion, and  he  was  to  cross  the  sea  for  the  first  time. 
He  was  quite  collected.  His  quiet  eye  enume- 
rated the  baggage  in  one  careless  side-glance 
which  detected  there  was  a  strap  undone  and  that 
a  walking-stick  was  missing.  In  all  that  crowded 
tumult  converging  on  the  stroke  of  the  hour  his 
seemed  to  be  the  only  apart  and  impassive  face, 
and  I  began  to  think  he  was  indifferent;  he 
merely  looked  at  the  cover  of  one  magazine,  and 
then  turned  to  the  window  and  observed  the  world 
leaping  past  with  the  detachment  of  a  small  im- 
mortal who  was  watching  man's  fleeting  affairs. 
Nothing  to  do  with  him. 

Once  he  caught  my  intent  eye  —  for  I  thought 
he  was  a  trifle  pale  —  and  then  he  passed  a  ra- 
diant wink,  and  one  of  his  dangling  legs  began 
to  swing  as  though  that  were  the  sole  limb  to 
be  joyful.  An  hour  later,  his  face  still  to  the 
glass,  he  was  shaking  with  internal  mirth.  I 
asked  him  to  let  me  share  it  with  him.  "  Did 
you  see  that  old  man  at  the  station  when  the  train 
was  starting?"  he  whispered.  "He  couldn't 
find  the  carriage  where  his  things  were  —  he  was 

[88] 


Initiation 

running  up  and  down  without  a  hat.  Perhaps  he 
was  left  behind."  What  do  man's  misfortune's 
matter  to  the  gods  who  live  for  ever? 

Through  sections  of  the  quayside  sheds  he 
caught  sight  of  near  funnels,  businesslike  with 
smoke,  and  a  row  of  ports.  It  was  then  I  had 
to  tell  him  there  was  plenty  of  time.  "  Two 
funnels,"  I  heard  him  say  in  surprise,  and  there 
is  no  doubt  at  that  moment  some  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  occasion  was  reflected  on  myself. 
That  extra  funnel  told  him,  I  hope,  I  was  doing 
this  business  in  no  meagre  spirit.  None  of  your 
single-funnel  ships  for  our  affairs.  At  the  quay 
end  of  the  gangway  he  stopped  me,  interrupting 
the  whole  concourse  to  do  so.  "  Where's  that 
other  bag?"  he  demanded  severely.  I  was  an- 
noyed—  like  the  people  who  were  following  us 
—  but  I  had  to  admire  him  all  the  same.  At  his 
age  no  doubt  it  may  be  demanded  that  a  ship  be 
put  about  for  a  bag  left  behind.  When  this 
childish  egoism  is  maintained  well  into  life,  large 
fortunes  may  be  made.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  only 
way.  As  soon  as  a  man  can  relate  his  personal 
affairs  to  those  of  the  world,  and  understands 
how  unimportant  he  really  is,  from  that  moment 
he  becomes  a  failure.  Some  men  never  do  it, 

[89] 


Old  Junk 

and  thus  succeed.  Therefore  I  allowed  the  Boy 
to  lead  me  aboard,  and  so  secured  a  good  berth  at 
once,  to  the  envy  of  those  who  were  unaided  by 
a  child.  Already  I  was  informed  that,  after 
due  inspection,  the  steamer  had  plenty  of  boats, 
"  so  it  won't  matter  if  we  sink."  In  five  minutes 
we  had  discovered  the  companions  to  everywhere 
on  that  ship,  and  were,  I  believe,  the  only  pas- 
sengers who  could  find  our  way  about  her  before 
she  left  port. 

But  a  glance  seaward,  and  a  word  with  an 
officer,  gave  me  a  thought  or  two,  and  I  broke  off 
the  Boy's  interesting  conversation  with  a  fatherly 
French  quartermaster  to  take  him  where  he  could 
at  least  begin  with  some  food.  "  What  a  lark 
if  there's  a  storm,"  laughed  His  Nibs,  removing 
a  sandwich  to  say  so.  The  fiddles  were  on  the 
tables.  We  were  off. 

The  ship  gave  a  lurch,  a  ham  leaped  to  the 
floor,  some  plates  crashed,  and  then  the  row  of 
ports  alongside  us  were  darkened  by  the  run  of 
a  wave.  The  Boy  made  an  exclamation  partly 
stifled,  and  looked  at  me  quickly.  I  did  not  look 
at  him,  but  went  on  with  the  food.  He  stopped 
eating,  and  remained  with  his  gaze  fixed  on  the 
ports,  gripping  his  chair  whenever  they  went 

[90] 


Initiation 

dark.  He  said  nothing  about  it,  but  he  must 
have  been  thinking  pretty  hard.  "  I  suppose 
this  is  a  strong  ship,  isn't  it?  "  he  questioned  once. 

As  we  were  about  to  emerge  into  the  open,  the 
wet,  deserted  deck  fell  away,  and  a  grey  wave 
which  looked  as  aged  as  death,  its  white  hair 
streaming  in  the  wind,  suddenly  reared  over  the 
ship's  side,  as  though  looking  for  us,  and  then 
fled  phantom-like,  with  dire  cries.  The  Boy 
shrank  back  for  a  moment,  horrified,  but  then 
moved  on.  I  think  I  heard  him  sigh.  It  was  no 
summer  sea.  The  dark  bales  of  rain  were  speed- 
ing up  from  the  south-west,  low  over  waters  which 
looked  just  what  the  sea  really  is. 

I  am  glad  he  saw  it  like  that.  He  hung  on  in 
a  shelter  with  a  needlessly  tight  grip,  and  there 
was  something  of  consternation  in  his  eye.  But 
I  enjoyed  the  cry  of  surprise  he  gave  once  when 
we  were  getting  used  to  it.  A  schooner  passed 
us,  quite  close,  a  midget  which  fairly  danced  over 
the  running  hills,  lifting  her  bows  and  soaring 
upwards,  light  as  a  bird,  and  settling  in  the  hol- 
lows amid  a  white  cloud.  "  Isn't  she  brave  I  " 
said  the  Boy. 

December  rpio 

[91] 


VIII.     The  Art  of  Writing 

WHETHER  I  placed  the  writing-pad 
on  my  knees  in  a  great  chair,  or  on 
the  table,  or  on  the  floor,  nothing 
happened  to  it.  I  can  only  say  that  that  morn- 
ing the  paper  was  full  of  vile  hairs,  which  the 
pen  kept  getting  into  its  mouth  —  enough  to  ruin 
the  goodwill  of  any  pen.  Yet  all  the  circum- 
stances of  the  room  seemed  luckily  placed  for 
work  to  flow  with  ease;  but  there  was  some  myste- 
rious and  inimical  obstruction.  The  fire  was 
bright  and  lively,  the  familiar  objects  about  the 
table  appeared  to  be  in  their  right  place. 
Again  I  examined  the  gods  of  the  table  to 
be  sure  one  had  not  by  mischance  broken  the 
magic  circle  and  interrupted  the  current  of 
favour  for  me.  They  were  rightly  orientated  — 
that  comic  pebble  paper-weight  Miss  Muffet 
found  on  the  beach  of  a  distant  holiday,  the 
chrysanthemums  which  were  fresh  from  that 
very  autumn  morning,  stuck  in  the  blue  vase  which 
must  have  got  its  colour  in  the  Gulf  Stream ;  and 

[92] 


The  Art  of  Writing 

the  rusty  machete  blade  from  Peru,  and  the 
earthenware  monkey  squatting  meekly  in  his 
shadowy  niche,  holding  the  time  in  his  hands. 
The  time  was  going  on,  too. 

I  tried  all  the  tricks  I  knew  for  getting  under 
way,  but  the  pen  continued  to  do  nothing  but 
draw  idle  faces  and  pick  up  hairs,  which  it  held 
firmly  in  its  teeth.  Then  the  second  telegram 
was  brought  to  me.  "  What  about  Balkan 
article  ? "  it  asked,  and  finished  with  a  studied 
insult,  after  the  manner  of  the  editor-kind,  whose 
assurance  that  the  function  of  the  universe  is  only 
fulfilled  when  they  have  published  the  fact  makes 
them  behave  as  would  Jove  with  a  thick-headed 
immortal.  "  These  Balkan  atrocities  will  never 
cease,"  I  said,  dropping  the  telegram  into  the 
fire. 

Had  I  possessed  but  one  of  those  intelligent 
manuals  which  instruct  the  innocent  in  the  art, 
not  only  of  writing,  but  of  writing  so  well  that  a 
very  disappointed  and  world-weary  editor  rejoices 
when  he  sees  the  manuscript,  puts  his  thumbs  up 
and  calls  for  wine,  I  would  have  consulted  it.  (I 
should  be  glad  to  hear  if  there  is  such  a  book,  with 
a  potent  remedy  for  just  common  dulness  —  the 
usual  opaque,  gummous,  slow,  thick,  or  fat  head.) 
As  for  me,  I  have  nothing  but  a  cheap  dictionary, 

[93] 


Old  Junk 

and  that  I  could  not  find.  I  raised  my  voice,  call- 
ing down  the  hollow,  dusty,  and  unfurnished 
spaces  of  my  mind,  summoning  my  servants,  my 
carefully  chosen  but  lazy  and  wilful  staff  of  words, 
to  my  immediate  aid.  But  there  was  no  answer ; 
only  the  cobwebs  moved  there,  though  I  thought 
I  heard  a  faint  buzzing,  which  might  have  been 
a  blow-fly.  No  doubt  my  staff  —  small  blame 
to  them  —  were  dreaming  somewhere  in  the  sun, 
dispersed  over  several  seas  and  continents. 

Well,  a  suburb  of  a  big  town,  and  such  jobs  as 
I  find  for  them  to  do,  are  grey  enough  for  them 
in  winter.  I  have  no  doubt  some  were  nooning 
it  in  Algiers,  and  others  were  prospecting  the 
South  Seas,  flattering  themselves,  with  gross 
vanity,  how  well  they  could  serve  me  there,  if 
only  I  would  give  chem  a  chance  with  those 
coloured  and  lonely  islands;  and  others  were  in 
the  cabins  of  ships  far  from  any  land,  gossiping 
about  old  times;  and  these  last  idle  words,  it  is 
my  experience,  are  the  most  stubborn  of  the  lot, 
usually  ignoring  all  my  efforts  to  get  them  home 
again  and  to  business.  I  could  call  and  rage  as 
I  chose,  or  entreat  them,  showing  them  the 
urgency  of  my  need.  But  only  a  useless  and  in- 
definite article  came  along,  as  he  usually  does, 
hours  and  hours  before  the  arrival  of  a  lusty 

[94] 


The  Art  of  Writing 

word  which  could  throw  about  the  suggestions 
quicker  than  they  may  be  picked  up  and  examined. 

Very  well.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to 
fill  another  pipe,  and  dwell  with  some  dismay 
upon  such  things  as,  for  instance,  the  way  one's 
light  grows  smoky  with  age.  Is  there  a  manual 
which  will  help  a  man  to  keep  his  light  shining 
brightly  —  supposing  he  has  a  light  to  keep  ? 
But  if  he  has  but  the  cheapest  of  transient  glims, 
good  and  bright  enough  for  its  narrow  purpose, 
is  it  any  wonder  it  burns  foul,  seeing  what  busi- 
ness usually  it  gets  to  illuminate  in  these  exciting 
and  hurried  times.  What  work!  I  think  it 
would  make  rebels  of  the  most  quiet,  unadventur- 
ous,  and  simple-featured  troop  of  words  that 
ever  a  man  gathered  about  him  for  the  plain 
domestic  duties  to  employ  them  regularly,  for 
example,  in  sweeping  up  into  neat  columns  such 
litter  as  the  House  of  Commons  makes.  It 
would  numb  the  original  heart  of  the  bonniest 
set  of  words  that  rightly  used  would  have  made 
some  people  happy  —  sterilize  them,  make  them 
anaemic  and  pasty-faced,  so  that  they  would  dis- 
turb the  peace  of  mind  of  all  compassionate  men 
who  looked  upon  them.  That  my  own  staff  of 
words  refused  my  summons  .  .  . 

But  what  was  it  I  said  I  wanted  them  for  just 

[95] 


Old  Junk 

now  ?  I  gazed  round  the  walls  upon  the  portraits 
of  the  great  writers  of  the  past,  hoping  for 
inspiration.  Useless!  Upon  Emerson's  face 
there  was  a  faint  smile  of  most  infuriating 
benevolence.  Lamb  —  but  I  am  getting  tired  of 
his  smirk,  which  might  be  of  irony  or  kindness. 
He  would  look  savage  enough  today,  hearing  his 
constantly  returning  Dissertation  on  Roast  Pig 
thump  the  door-mat  four  times  a  week;  for  that, 
he  can  be  assured,  is  the  way  editors  would  treat 
it  now,  and  without  even  preliminary  consultations 
with  lady  typist-secretaries.  Of  the  whole  gallery 
of  the  great  I  felt  there  was  not  one  worth  his 
wall  room.  They  are  pious  frauds.  This  in- 
spiration business  is  played  out.  I  have  never 
had  the  worth  of  the  frames  out  of  those  por- 
traits. .  .  .  Ah,  the  Balkans.  That  was  it. 
And  of  all  the  flat,  interminable  Arctic  wastes 
of  bleak  wickedness  and  frozen  error  that  ever  a 
shivering  writer  had  to  traverse  .  .  . 

My  head  was  in  my  hands,  and  I  was  trying  to 
get  daylight  and  direction  into  the  affair  with  my 
eyes  shut,  when  I  felt  a  slight  touch  on  my  arm. 
"  I'm  sorry  we're  in  your  way.  Are  you  pray- 
ing? Look  who's  here." 

I  looked.  It  was  Miss  Muffet  who  spoke. 
She  shook  the  gold  out  of  her  eyes  and  regarded 

[96] 


The  Art  of  Writing 

me  steadily.  Well  she  knew  she  had  no  right 
there,  for  all  her  look  of  confident  and  tender 
solicitude.  The  Boy,  who  is  a  little  older  (and 
already  knows  enough  to  place  the  responsibility 
for  intrusion  on  his  sister  with  her  innocent  eyes 
and  imperturbable  calm  and  golden  hair),  stood 
a  little  in  the  background,  pretending  to  be  en- 
grossed with  a  magnet,  as  though  he  were  unaware 
that  he  was  really  present.  Curls  hopped  about 
on  one  leg  frankly,  knowing  that  the  others 
would  be  blamed  for  any  naughtiness  of  hers. 
Her  radiant  impudence  never  needs  any  apology. 
What  a  plague  of  inconsequential  violators  of 
any  necessary  peace !  When  would  my  lucky 
words  come  now? 

The  Boy  probably  saw  a  red  light  somewhere. 
"  Haven't  you  finished  uncle  we  thought  you  had 
has  a  topsail  schooner  got  two  or  three  masts  I 
saw  a  fine  little  engine  up  in  the  town  today  and  an 
aeroplane  it  was  only  seventeen  shillings  do  you 
think  that  is  too  much?" 

"  I  am  learning  the  sailors'  hornpipe  at  school," 
said  Miss  Muffet,  slowly  and  calmly;  "  you  watch 
my  feet.  Do  I  dance  it  nicely?  " 

I  watched  her  feet.  Now  it  is  but  fair  to  say 
that  when  Miss  Muffet  dances  across  a  room 
there,  is  no  international  crisis  in  all  this  world 

[97] 


Old  Junk 

which  would  distract  any  man's  frank  admiration. 
When  Miss  Muffet  steps  it  on  a  sunny  day,  her 
hair  being  what  it  is,  and  her  little  feet  in  her 
strap  shoes  being  such  as  they  are,  then  your  mood 
dances  in  accord,  and  your  thoughts  swing  in 
light  and  rythmic  harmony.  I  got  up.  And 
Curls,  who  is  one  of  those  who  must  mount  stairs 
laboriously,  secure  to  the  rails  —  she  has  black 
eyes  only  the  bright  light  of  which  is  seen  through 
her  mane  —  she  reached  up  for  my  hand,  for  she 
cannot  imitate  her  sister's  hornpipe  without  hold- 
ing on. 

Miss  Muffet  reached  a  corner  of  the  room,  and 
swung  round,  light  as  a  fairy,  her  hands  on  her 
hips,  and  said,  "What  do  you  think  of  that?" 
Some  of  my  lucky  words  instantly  returned.  I 
suppose  it  was  more  to  their  mind.  But  I  had 
nothing  to  give  them  to  do.  They  could  just 
stand  around  and  look  on  now,  for  when  Curls 
seriously  imitates  her  sister,  and  then  laughs 
heartily  at  her  own  absurd  failure,  because  her  feet 
are  irresponsible,  that  is  the  time  when  you  have 
nothing  to  do,  and  would  not  do  anything  if  it 
had  to  be  done.  .:.  .' * 

What  time  it  was  the  next  interruption  came  — 
it  was  another  telegram  —  I  don't  know.  Time 
had  been  obliterated.  But  then  it  began  to  flow 

[98] 


The  Art  of  Writing 

again;  though  not  with  a  viscid  and  heavy 
measure.  And  when  I  took  up  my  light  and 
ready  pen,  there,  standing  at  eager  attention,  was 
all  my  staff,  waiting  the  call.  What  had  hap- 
pened to  bring  them  all  back?  If  the  writers 
of  literary  manuals  will  explain  that  secret  to  me, 
I  should  acquire  true  wealth. 


[99] 


IX.     A  First  Impression 

CERTAINLY  it  was  an  inconsiderate 
way  of  approaching  the  greatest  city  of 
the  Americas,  but  that  was  not  my  fault. 
I  wished  for  the  direct  approach,  the  figure  of 
Liberty  to  rise,  haughty  and  most  calm,  a  noble 
symbol,  as  we  came  in  from  overseas;  then  the 
wide  portals;  then  New  York.  But  the  erratic 
tracks  of  a  tramp  steamer  go  not  as  her  voyagers 
will.  They  have  no  control  over  her.  She 
moves  to  an  enigmatic  will  in  London.  It  hap- 
pens, then,  that  she  rarely  shows  a  wonder  of  the 
world  any  respect.  She  arrives  like  sudden  rain, 
like  wind  from  a  new  quarter.  She  is  as  chance 
as  the  fall  of  a  star.  None  knows  the  day  nor 
the  hour.  At  the  most  inconvenient  time  she 
takes  the  wonder's  visitors  to  the  back  door. 

We  went,  light  ship  from  the  South,  to  Bar- 
bados, for  orders;  and  because  I  wanted  New 
York,  for  that  was  the  way  home,  we  were  sent 
to  Tampa  for  phosphates.  As  to  Tampa,  its 
position  on  the  globe  is  known  only  to  under- 

[wo] 


A  First  Impression 

writers  and  shipbrokers ;  it  is  that  sort  of  place. 
It  is  a  mere  name,  like  Fernando  de  Noronha,  or 
Key  West,  which  one  meets  only  in  the  shipping 
news,  idly  wondering  then  what  strange  things 
the  seafarer  would  find  if  he  went. 

Late  one  night,  down  a  main  street  of  Tampa, 
there  came,  with  the  deliberate  movement  of 
fate,  a  gigantic  corridor  train,  looming  as  high 
as  a  row  of  lighted  villas,  and  drawn  by  the  awful 
engine  of  a  dream.  That  train  behaved  there  as 
trams  do  at  home,  presently  stopping  alongside 
a  footway. 

Behind  me  was  a  little  wooden  shop.  In  front 
was  the  wall  of  a  carriage,  having  an  entrance  on 
the  second  storey,  and  a  roof  athwart  the  me- 
ridian stars.  One  of  its  wheels  was  the  nearest 
and  most  dominant  object  in  the  night  to  me,  a 
monstrous  bright  round  resting  on  a  muddy  news- 
paper in  the  road.  It  absorbed  all  the  light  from 
the  little  wooden  shop.  Now,  I  had  hunted 
throughout  Tampa  for  its  railway  terminus,  fruit- 
lessly; but  here  its  train  had  found  me,  keeping 
me  from  crossing  the  road. 

"  Where    do    I    board    this    train    for    New 

York?  "  I  asked.      (I  talked  like  a  fool,  I  know; 

it  was  like  asking  a  casual  wayfarer  in  East  Ham 

whether  that  by  the  kerb  is  the  Moscow  express. 

[101] 


Old  Junk 

Yet  what  was  I  to  do?)  "Board  her  right 
here,"  said  the  fellow,  who  was  in  his  shirt 
sleeves.  Therefore  I  delivered  myself,  in  blind 
faith,  to  the  casual  gods  who  are  apt  to  wake 
up  and  by  a  series  of  deft  little  miracles  get  things 
done  fitly  in  America  when  all  seems  lost  and  the 
traveller  has  even  bared  his  resigned  neck  to  the 
stroke. 

But  I  had  not  the  least  hope  of  seeing  New 
York  and  a  Cunarder;  not  with  such  an  unpro- 
pitious  start  as  that.  With  an  exit  like  Euston 
one  never  doubts  sure  direction,  and  arrival  at 
the  precise  spot  at  the  exact  moment.  You  feel 
there  it  was  arranged  for  in  Genesis.  The 
officials  cannot  alter  affairs.  They  are  priests 
administering  inviolate  rites,  advancing  matters 
fore-ordained  by  the  unseen,  and  so  no  more  able 
to  stay  or  speed  this  cosmic  concern  than  the 
astronomer  who  schedules  the  planets.  The 
planets  take  their  heavenly  courses.  But  I  had 
never  been  to  the  United  States  before,  did  not 
know  even  the  names  of  their  many  gods,  and 
New  York  was  at  the  end  of  a  great  journey;  and 
the  train  for  it  stopped  outside  a  tobacco  shop  in 
the  road,  like  a  common  tram. 

There  was  another  night  when,  with  the  usual 
unreason,  the  swift  and  luxurious  glide,  lessening 
[102] 


A  First  Impression 

through  easy  gradations,  ceased.  I  saw  some 
lights  in  the  rain  outside.  How  should  I  know 
it  was  New  York?  We  had  even  changed 
climates  since  we  started.  The  passengers  of  my 
early  days  in  the  train  had  passed  away.  There 
was  nothing  to  show.  More,  I  felt  no  exultation 
—  which  should  have  been  the  first  of  warnings. 
Merely  we  got  to  a  railway  station  one  night, 
and  a  negro  insisted  that  I  should  get  out  and 
stop  out.  This  was  N'  Yark,  he  said. 

It  was  night,  I  repeat ;  there  was  a  row  of  cabs 
in  a  dolorous  rain.  I  saw  a  man  in  a  shiny  cape 
under  the  nearest  lamp,  and  beyond  him  a  vista 
of  reflections  from  vacant  stones,  which  to  me 
always,  more  than  bleak  hills  or  the  empty  round 
of  the  sea,  is  desolation.  There  were  no  spacious 
portals.  There  was  no  figure  of  Liberty,  haughty 
but  welcoming.  There  was  rain,  and  cabs  that 
waited  without  hope.  There  was  exactly  what 
you  find  at  the  end  of  a  twopenny  journey  when 
your  only  luggage  is  an  evening  paper,  an  um- 
brella, and  that  tired  feeling.  Not  knowing 
where  to  go,  and  little  caring,  I  followed  the 
crowd,  and  so  found  myself  in  a  large  well-lighted 
hall.  Having  no  business  there  —  it  was  a 
barren  place  —  I  pushed  on,  and  came  suddenly 
to  the  rim  of  the  world. 
[103] 


Old  Junk 

Before  me  was  the  immensity  of  dark  celestial 
space  in  which  wandered  hosts  of  uncharted  stars; 
and  below  my  feet  was  the  abyss  of  old  night. 
Just  behind  me  was  a  woman  telling  her  husband 
that  they  had  forgotten  Jimmy's  boots,  and 
couldn't  go  back  now,  for  the  ferry  was  just 
coming. 

Jimmy's  boots !  Now,  when  you  are  a  released 
soul,  ascending  the  night,  and  the  earth  below  is 
a  bright  silver  ball,  not  so  very  big,  and  some 
other  viewless  soul  behind  you,  still  with  thoughts 
absent  on  worldly  trifles,  mutters  concerning  boots 
when  in  the  Milky  Way,  you  will  know  how  I  felt. 
Here  was  the  ultimate  empty  dark  in  which  the 
sun  could  never  shine.  The  sun  had  not  merely 
left  the  place.  It  had  never  been  there.  It  was 
a  remote  star,  one  of  myriads  in  the  constellations 
at  large,  the  definite  groups  which  occulted  in  the 
void  before  me.  Looking  at  those  swiftly  moving 
systems,  I  watched  for  the  flash  of  impact;  but  no 
great  light  of  collision  broke.  The  groups  of 
lights  passed  and  repassed  noiselessly. 

Then  one  constellation  presently  detached  itself, 
and  its  orbit  evidently  would  intersect  our  foot- 
hold. It  came  nearer  out  of  the  night,  till  I 
could  see  plainly  that  it  appeared  to  be  a  long 
section  of  a  well-lighted  street,  say,  like  a  length 
[104] 


A  First  Impression 

of  Piccadilly.  It  approached  end-on  to  where  I 
stood,  and  at  last  impinged.  It  actually  was  a 
length  of  street,  and  I  could  continue  my  walk. 
The  street  floated  off  again  into  the  night,  with 
me,  Jimmy's  father  and  mother,  and  all  of  us, 
and  the  vans  and  motor-cars;  and  the  other  square 
end  of  it  soon  joined  a  roadway  on  the  opposite 
shore.  The  dark  river  was  as  full  of  mobile 
lengths  of  bright  roadway  as  Oxford  Circus  is  of 
motor-buses;  and  the  fear  of  the  unknown,  as  in 
the  terrific  dark  of  a  dream  where  flaming  comets 
stream  on  undirected  courses,  numbed  my  little 
mind.  I  had  found  New  York. 

I  had  found  it.  Its  bulk  was  beyond  the  mind, 
its  lights  were  falling  star  systems,  and  its  move- 
ments those  of  general  cataclysm.  I  should  find 
no  care  for  little  human  needs  there.  One  can- 
not warm  one's  hands  against  the  flames  of  earth- 
quake. There  is  no  provision  for  men  in  the 
welter,  but  dimly  apprehended  in  the  night,  of 
blind  and  inhuman  powers. 

Therefore,  the  hotel  bedroom,  when  I  got  to 
it,  surprised  and  steadied  me  with  its  elaborate 
care  for  the  body.  But  yet  I  was  not  certain. 
Then  I  saw  against  the  wall  a  dial,  and  reading 
a  notice  over  it  I  learned  that  by  working  the 
hands  of  this  false  clock  correctly  I  could  procure 


Old  Junk 

anything,  from  an  apple  to  the  fire  brigade.  Now 
this  was  carrying  matters  to  the  other  extreme; 
and  I  had  to  suppress  a  desire  to  laugh  hysterically. 
I  set  the  hands  to  a  number;  waited  one  minute; 
then  the  door  opened,  and  a  waiter  came  in  with 
a  real  tray,  conveying  a  glass  and  a  bottle.  So 
there  was  a  method  then  in  this  general  madness 
after  all.  I  tried  to  regard  the  wonder  as  in- 
differently as  the  waiter's  own  cold  and  measuring 
eyes. 

March 


[106] 


X.     The  Derelict 

IN  a  tramp  steamer,  which  was  overloaded, 
and  in  midwinter,  I  had  crossed  to  America 
for  the  first  time.  What  we  experienced  of 
the  western  ocean  during  that  passage  gave  me  so 
much  respect  for  it  that  the  prospect  of  the  re- 
turn journey,  three  thousand  miles  of  those  seas 
between  me  and  home,  was  already  a  dismal  fore- 
boding. The  shipping  posters  of  New  York, 
showing  stately  liners  too  lofty  even  to  notice  the 
Atlantic,  were  arguments  good  enough  for  steer- 
age passengers,  who  do,  I  know,  reckon  a  steam- 
er's worth  by  the  number  of  its  funnels;  but  the 
pictures  did  nothing  to  lessen  my  regard  for  that 
dark  outer  world  I  knew.  And  having  no  ex- 
perience of  ships  installed  with  racquet  courts, 
Parisian  cafes,  swimming  baths,  and  pergolas,  I 
was  naturally  puzzled  by  the  inconsequential  be- 
haviour of  the  first-class  passengers  at  the  hotel. 
They  were  leaving  by  the  liner  which  was  to  take 
me,  and,  I  gathered,  were  going  to  cross  a  bridge 
to  England  in  the  morning.  Of  course,  this  might 
[107] 


Old  Junk 

have  been  merely  the  innocent  profanity  of  the 
simple-minded. 

Embarking  at  the  quay  next  day,  I  could  not 
see  that  our  ship  had  either  a  beginning  or  an  end. 
There  was  a  blank  wall  which  ran  out  of  sight  to 
the  right  and  left.  How  far  it  went,  and  what  it 
enclosed,  were  beyond  me.  Hundreds  of  us  in  a 
slow  procession  mounted  stairs  to  the  upper  floor 
of  a  warehouse,  and  from  thence  a  bridge  led  us 
to  a  door  in  the  wall  half-way  in  its  height.  No 
funnels  could  be  seen.  Looking  straight  up  from 
the  embarkation  gangway,  along  what  seemed  the 
parapet  of  the  wall  was  a  row  of  far-off  indistin- 
guishable faces  peering  straight  down  at  us. 
There  was  no  evidence  that  this  building  we  were 
entering,  of  which  the  high  black  wall  was  a  part, 
was  not  an  important  and  permanent  feature  of 
the  city.  It  was  in  keeping  with  the  magnitude 
of  New  York's  skyscrapers,  which  this  planet's 
occasionally  non-irritant  skin  permits  to  stand 
there  to  afford  man  an  apparent  reason  to  be  grat- 
ified with  his  own  capacity  and  daring. 

But  with  the  knowledge  that  this  wall  must  be 
afloat  there  came  no  sense  of  security  when,  going 
through  that  little  opening  in  its  altitude,  I  found 
myself  in  a  spacious  decorated  interior  which 
hinted  nothing  of  a  ship,  for  I  was  puzzled  as 

[108] 


The  Derelict 

to  direction.  My  last  ship  could  be  surveyed  in 
two  glances;  she  looked,  and  was,  a  comprehen- 
sible ship,  no  more  than  a  manageable  handful  for 
an  able  master.  In  that  ship  you  could  see  at 
once  where  you  were  and  what  to  do.  But  in 
this  liner  you  could  not  see  where  you  were,  and 
would  never  know  which  way  to  take  unless  you 
had  a  good  memory.  No  understanding  came  to 
me  in  that  hall  of  a  measured  and  shapely  body, 
designed  with  a  cunning  informed  by  ages  of  sea- 
lore  to  move  buoyantly  and  surely  among  the 
ranging  seas,  to  balance  delicately,  a  quick  and 
sensitive  being,  to  every  precarious  slope,  to  re- 
cover a  lost  poise  easily  and  with  the  grace  natural 
to  a  quick  creature  controlled  by  an  alert  mind. 

There  was  no  shape  at  all  to  this  structure. 
I  could  see  no  line  the  run  of  which  gave  me  war- 
rant that  it  was  comprised  in  the  rondure  of  a 
ship.  The  lines  were  all  of  straight  corridors, 
which,  for  all  I  knew,  might  have  ended  blindly 
on  open  space,  as  streets  which  traverse  a  city 
and  are  bare  in  vacancy  beyond  the  dwellings.  It 
was  possible  we  were  encompassed  by  walls,  but 
only  one  wall  was  visible.  There  we  idled,  all 
strangers,  and  to  remain  strangers,  in  a  large  hall 
roofed  by  a  dome  of  coloured  glass.  Quite  prop- 
erly, palms  stood  beneath.  There  were  offices 
[109] 


Old  Junk 

and  doors  everywhere.  On  a  broad  staircase  a 
multitude  of  us  wandered  aimlessly  up  and  down. 
Each  side  of  the  stairway  were  electric  lifts,  inter- 
mittent and  brilliant  apparitions.  I  began  to  un- 
derstand why  the  saloon  passengers  thought 
nothing  of  the  voyage.  They  were  encountering 
nothing  unfamiliar.  They  had  but  come  to  an- 
other hotel  for  a  few  days. 

I  attempted  to  find  my  cabin,  but  failed.  A 
uniformed  guide  took  care  of  me.  But  my  cabin, 
curtained,  upholstered,  and  warm,  with  mirrors 
and  plated  ware,  sunk  somewhere  deeply  among 
carpeted  and  silent  streets  down  each  of  which 
the  perspective  of  glow-lamps  looked  intermin- 
able, left  me  still  questioning.  The  long  walk  had 
given  me  a  fear  that  I  was  remote  from  important 
affairs  which  might  be  happening  beyond.  My 
address  was  323.  The  street  door  —  I  was  down 
a  side  turning,  though  —  bore  that  number.  A 
visitor  could  make  no  mistake,  supposing  he  could 
find  the  street  and  my  side  turning.  That  was  it 
There  was  a  very  great  deal  in  this  place  for 
everybody  to  remember,  and  most  of  us  were 
strangers.  No  doubt,  however,  we  were  afloat, 
if  the  lifebelts  in  the  rack  meant  anything.  Yet 
the  cabin,  insulated  from  all  noise,  was  not  sooth- 
ing, but  disturbing.  I  had  been  used  to  a  ship  in 
[no] 


The  Derelict 

which  you  could  guess  all  that  was  happening 
even  when  in  your  bunk;  a  sensitive  and  commun- 
icative ship. 

A  steward  appeared  at  my  door,  a  stranger 
out  of  nowhere,  and  asked  whether  I  had  seen  a 
bag  not  mine  in  the  cabin.  He  might  have  been 
created  merely  to  put  that  question,  for  I  never 
saw  him  again  on  the  voyage.  This  liner  was 
a  large  province  having  irregular  and  shifting 
bounds,  permitting  incontinent  entrance  and  dis- 
appearance. All  this  should  have  inspired  me 
with  an  idea  of  our  vastness  and  importance,  but 
it  did  not.  I  felt  I  was  one  of  a  multitude  in- 
cluded in  a  nebulous  mass  too  vague  to  hold  to- 
gether unless  we  were  constantly  wary. 

In  the  saloon  there  was  the  solid  furniture  of 
rare  woods,  the  ornate  decorations,  and  the  light 
and  shadows  making  vague  its  limits  and  giving 
it  an  appearance  of  immensity,  to  keep  the  mind 
from  the  thought  of  our  real  circumstances.  At 
dinner  we  had  valentine  music,  dreamy  stuff  to 
accord  with  the  shaded  lamps  which  displayed  the 
tables  in  a  lower  rosy  light.  It  helped  to  extend 
the  mysterious  and  romantic  shadows.  The  pale, 
disembodied  masks  of  the  waiters  swam  in  the 
dusk  above  the  tinted  light.  I  had  for  a  com- 
panion a  vivacious  American  lady  from  the  Middle 
[in] 


Old  Junk 

West,  and  she  looked  round  that  prospect  we  had 
of  an  expensive  cafe,  and  said,  "  Well,  but  I  am 
disappointed.  Why,  I've  been  looking  forward 
to  seeing  the  ocean,  you  know.  And  it  isn't  here." 

"  Smooth  passage,"  remarked  a  man  on  the 
other  side.  "  No  sea  at  all  worth  mentioning." 
Actually,  I  know  there  was  a  heavy  beam  sea  run- 
ning before  a  half-gale.  I  could  guess  the  officer 
in  charge  somewhere  on  the  exposed  roof  might 
have  another  mind  about  it;  but  it  made  no  differ- 
ence to  us  in  our  circle  of  rosy  intimate  light  bound 
by  those  vague  shadows  which  were  alive  with 
ready  servitude. 

"  And  I've  been  reading  Captains  Courageous 
with  this  voyage  in  view.  Isn't  this  the  month 
when  the  forties  roar?  I  want  to  hear  them 
roar,  just  once,  you  know,  and  as  gently  as  any 
sucking  dove."  We  all  laughed.  "  We  can't 
even  tell  we're  in  a  ship." 

She  began  to  discuss  Kipling's  book.  "  There's 
some  fine  seas  in  that.  Have  you  read  it?  But 
I'd  like  to  know  where  that  ocean  is  he  pretends 
to  have  seen.  I  do  believe  the  realists  are  no 
more  reliable  than  the  romanticists.  Here  we 
are  a  thousand  miles  out,  and  none  of  us  has  seen 
the  sea  yet.  Tell  me,  does  not  a  realist  have  to 
[112] 


The  Derelict 

magnify  his  awful  billows  just  to  get  them  into 
his  reader's  view?" 

I  murmured  something  feeble  and  sociable. 
I  saw  then  why  sailors  never  talk  directly  of  the 
sea.  I,  for  instance,  could  not  find  my  key  at  that 
moment  —  it  was  in  another  pocket  somewhere 
—  so  I  had  no  iron  to  touch.  Talking  largely 
of  the  sea  is  something  like  the  knowing  talk  of 
young  men  about  women;  and  what  is  a  simple 
sailor  man  that  he  should  open  his  mouth  on  mys- 
teries? 

Only  on  the  liner's  boat-deck,  where  you  could 
watch  her  four  funnels  against  the  sky,  could  you 
see  to  what  extent  the  liner  was  rolling.  The  arc 
seemed  to  be  considerable  then,  but  slowly  de- 
scribed. But  the  roll  made  little  difference  to 
the  promenaders  below.  Sometimes  they  walked 
a  short  distance  on  the  edges  of  their  boots,  lean- 
ing over  as  they  did  so,  and  swerving  from  the 
straight,  as  though  they  had  turned  giddy.  The 
shadows  formed  by  the  weak  sunlight  moved 
slowly  out  of  ambush  across  the  white  deck,  but 
often  moved  indecisively,  as  though  uncertain  of 
a  need  to  go;  and  then  slowly  went  into  hiding 
again.  The  sea  whirling  and  leaping  past  was  far 
below  our  wall  side.  It  was  like  peering  dizzily 


Old  Junk 

over  a  precipice  when  watching  those  green  and 
white  cataracts. 

The  passengers,  wrapped  and  comfortable  on 
the  lee  deck,  chatted  as  blithely  as  at  a  garden- 
party,  while  the  band  played  medleys  of  national 
airs  to  suit  our  varied  complexions.  The  stewards 
came  round  with  loaded  trays.  A  diminutive  and 
wrinkled  dame  in  costly  furs  frowned  through  her 
golden  spectacles  at  her  book,  while  her  maid  sat 
attentively  by.  An  American  actress  was  the 
centre  of  an  eager  group  of  grinning  young  men; 
she  was  unseen,  but  her  voice  was  distinct.  The 
two  Vanderbilts  took  their  brisk  constitutional 
among  us  as  though  the  liner  had  but  two  real 
passengers  though  many  invisible  nobodies.  The 
children,  who  had  not  ceased  laughing  and  play- 
ing since  we  left  New  York,  waited  for  the  slope 
of  the  deck  to  reach  its  greatest,  and  then  ran 
down  towards  the  bulwarks  precipitously.  The 
children,  happy  and  innocent,  completed  for  us 
the  feeling  of  comfortable  indifference  and  security 
which  we  found  when  we  saw  there  was  more 
ship  than  ocean.  The  liner's  deck  canted  dowry 
to  leeward,  went  over  more  and  more,  beyond 
what  it  had  done  yet,  and  a  pretty  little  girl  with 
dark  curls  riotous  from  under  her  red  tam-o'- 
shanter,  ran  down,  and  brought  up  against  us 


The  Derelict 

violently  with  both  hands,  laughing  heartily.  We 
laughed  too.  Looking  seawards,  I  saw  receding 
the  broad  green  hill,  snow-capped,  which  had 
lifted  us  and  let  us  down.  The  sea  was  getting 
up. 

Near  sunset,  when  the  billows  were  mounting 
express  along  our  run,  sometimes  to  leap  and 
snatch  at  our  upper  structure,  and  were  rocking 
us  with  some  ease,  there  was  a  commotion  for- 
ward. Books  and  shawls  went  anywhere  as  the 
passengers  ran.  Something  strange  was  to  be 
seen  upon  the  waters. 

It  looked  like  a  big  log  out  there  ahead,  over 
the  starboard  bow.  It  was  not  easy  to  make  out. 
The  light  was  failing.  We  overhauled  it  rapidly, 
and  it  began  to  shape  as  a  ship's  boat.  "  Oh,  it's 
gone,"  exclaimed  some  one  then.  But  the  forlorn 
object  lifted  high  again,  and  sank  once  more. 
Whenever  it  was  glimpsed  it  was  set  in  a  patch  of 
foam. 

That  flotsam,  whatever  it  was,  was  of  man. 
As  we  watched  it  intently,  and  before  it  was  quite 
plain,  we  knew  intutively  that  hope  was  not  there, 
that  we  were  watching  something  past  its  doom. 
It  drew  abeam,  and  we  saw  what  it  was,  a  derelict 
sailing  ship,  mastless  and  awash.  The  alien  wil- 
derness was  around  us  now,  and  we  saw  a  sky  that 


Old  Junk 

was  overcast  and  driven,  and  seas  that  were  up- 
lifted, which  had  grown  incredibly  huge,  swift,  and 
perilous,  and  they  had  colder  and  more  sombre 
hues. 

The  derelict  was  a  schooner,  a  lifeless  and 
soddened  hulk,  so  heavy  and  uncontesting  that  its 
foundering  seemed  at  hand.  The  waters  poured 
back  and  forth  at  her  waist,  as  though  holding 
her  body  captive  for  the  assaults  of  the  active 
seas  which  came  over  her  broken  bulwarks,  and 
plunged  ruthlessly  about.  There  was  something 
ironic  in  the  indifference  of  her  defenceless  body 
to  these  unending  attacks.  It  mocked  this  white 
and  raging  post-mortem  brutality,  and  gave  her 
a  dignity  that  was  cold  and  superior  to  all  the 
eternal  powers  could  now  do.  She  pitched  help- 
lessly head  first  into  a  hollow,  and  a  door  flew 
open  under  the  break  of  her  poop ;  it  surprised  and 
shocked  us,  for  the  dead  might  have  signed  to  us 
then.  She  went  astern  of  us  fast,  and  a  great 
comber  ran  at  her,  as  if  it  had  but  just  spied  her, 
and  thought  she  was  escaping.  There  was  a  high 
white  flash,  and  a  concussion  we  heard.  She  had 
gone.  But  she  appeared  again  far  away,  on  a 
summit  in  desolation,  black  against  the  sunset. 
The  stump  of  her  bowsprit,  the  accusatory  finger 
of  the  dead,  pointed  at  the  sky. 
[116] 


The  Derelict 

I  turned,  and  there  beside  me  was  the  lady  who 
had  wanted  to  find  the  sea.  She  was  gazing  at 
the  place  where  the  wreck  was  last  seen,  her  eyes 
fixed,  her  mouth  a  little  open  in  awe  and  horror. 

April  igio. 


[117] 


XL     The  Voyage  of  the 
Mona 

THERE  was  the  Mona,  Yeo's  boat,  below 
the  quay  wall;  but  I  could  not  see  her 
owner.  The  unequal  stones  of  that  wall 
have  the  weathered  appearance  of  a  natural  out- 
crop of  rock,  for  they  were  matured  by  the  traffic 
of  ships  when  America  was  a  new  yarn  among 
sailors.  They  are  the  very  stones  one  would 
choose  to  hear  speak.  Yet  the  light  of  early 
morning  in  that  spacious  estuary  was  so  young 
and  tenuous  that  you  could  suppose  this  heavy 
planet  had  not  yet  known  the  stains  of  night  and 
evil;  and  the  Mona,  it  must  be  remembered,  is 
white  without  and  egg-blue  within.  Such  were 
the  reflections  she  made,  lively  at  anchor  on  the 
swirls  of  a  flood-tide  bright  enough  for  the  sea- 
bottom  to  have  been  luminous,  that  I  felt  I  must 
find  Yeo.  The  white  houses  of  the  village,  with 
shining  faces,  were  looking  out  to  sea. 

Another  man,  a  visitor  from  the  cities  of  the 
plains,  was  gazing  down  with  appreciation  at  the 
Mona.  There  was  that  to  his  credit.  His  young 


The  Voyage  of  the  Mona 

wife,  slight  and  sad,  and  in  the  dress  of  the  prom- 
enade of  a  London  park,  was  with  him.  She  was 
not  looking  on  the  quickness  of  the  lucent  tide, 
but  at  the  end  of  a  parasol,  which  was  idly  mark- 
ing the  grits.  I  had  seen  the  couple  about  the 
village  for  a  week.  He  was  big,  ruddy,  middle- 
aged,  and  lusty.  His  neck  ran  straight  up  into 
his  round  head,  and  its  stiff  prickles  glittered  like 
short  ends  of  brass  wire.  It  was  easy  to  guess 
of  him,  without  knowing  him  and  therefore  un- 
fairly, that,  if  his  wife  actually  confessed  to  him 
that  she  loved  another  man,  he  would  not  have 
believed  her;  because  how  was  it  possible  for  her 
to  do  that,  he  being  what  he  was?  His  aggres- 
sive face,  and  his  air  of  confident  possession,  the 
unconscious  immodesty  of  the  man  because  of 
his  important  success  at  some  unimportant  thing 
or  other,  seemed  an  offence  in  the  ancient  tran- 
quillity of  that  place,  where  poor  men  acknowl- 
edged only  the  sea,  the  sun,  and  the  winds. 

I  found  Yeo  at  the  end  of  the  quay,  where  round 
the  corner  to  seaward  open  out  the  dunes  of  the 
opposite  shore  of  the  estuary,  faint  with  distance 
and  their  own  pallor,  and  ending  in  the  slender 
stalk  of  a  lighthouse,  always  quivering  at  the  vast- 
ness  of  what  confronts  it.  Yeo  was  sitting  on  a 
bollard,  rubbing  tobacco  between  his  palms.  I 


Old  Junk 

told  him  this  was  the  sort  of  morning  to  get  the 
Mona  out.  He  carefully  poured  the  grains  into 
the  bowl  of  his  pipe,  stoppered  it,  glanced  slowly 
about  the  brightness  of  the  river  mouth,  and  shook 
his  head.  This  was  a  great  surprise,  and  any- 
body who  did  not  know  Yeo  would  have  ques- 
tioned him.  But  it  was  certain  he  knew  his  bus- 
iness. There  is  not  a  more  deceptive  and  difficult 
stretch  of  coast  round  these  islands,  and  Yeo  was 
born  to  it.  He  stood  up,  and  his  long  black  hair 
stirred  in  the  breeze  under  the  broad  brim  of  a 
grey  hat  he  insists  on  wearing.  The  soft  hat  and 
his  lank  hair  make  him  womanish  in  profile,  in 
spite  of  a  body  to  which  a  blue  jersey  does  full 
justice,  and  the  sea-boots ;  but  when  'he  turns  his 
face  to  you,  with  his  light  eyes  and  his  dark  and 
leathery  face,  you  feel  he  is  strangely  masculine 
and  wise,  and  must  be  addressed  with  care  and 
not  as  most  men.  He  rarely  smiles  when  a  foolish 
word  is  spoken  or  when  he  is  contradicted  boldly 
by  the  innocent.  He  spits  at  his  feet  and  contem- 
plates the  sea,  as  though  he  had  heard  nothing. 

The  visitor  came  up,  followed  reluctantly  by 
his  wife.  "  Are  you  Yeo?  How  are  you,  Yeo? 
What  about  a  sail?  I  want  you  to  take  us  round 
to  Pebblecombe." 

That  village  is  over  the  bar  and  across  the 
[120] 


The  Voyage  of  the  Mona 

bay.     Yeo  looked  at  the  man,  and  shook  his  head. 

"Why  not?"  asked  the  visitor  sharply,  as 
though  he  were  addressing  the  reluctance  of  the 
driver  of  his  own  car. 

The  sailor  pointed  a  stern  finger  seawards,  to 
where  the  bar  is  shown  in  charts,  but  where  all 
we  could  make  out  was  the  flashing  of  inconstant 
white  lines. 

"  Well?  "  questioned  the  man,  who  glanced  out 
there  perfunctorily.  "  What  of  it?  " 

44  Look  at  it,"  mildly  insisted  the  sailor,  speak- 
ing for  the  first  time.  "  Isn't  the  sea  like  a 
wall?"  The  man's  wife,  who  was  regarding 
Yeo's  placid  face  with  melancholy  attention, 
turned  to  her  husband  and  placed  a  hand  of  nerv- 
ous deprecation  on  his  arm.  He  did  not  look  at 
her. 

'  Oh,  of  course,  if  you  don't  want  to  go,  if  you 
don't  want  to  go  ...  "  said  the  visitor,  shaking 
his  head  as  though  at  rubbish,  and  rising  several 
times  on  his  toes.  "  Perhaps  you've  a  better  job," 
he  added,  with  an  unpleasant  smile. 

"  I'm  ready  to  go  if  you  are,  sir,"  said  Yeo, 
"but  I  shall  have  to  take  my  friend  with  me." 
The  sailor  nodded  my  way. 

The  man  did  not  look  at  me.  I  was  not  there 
to  him.  He  gave  an  impatient  jerk  to  his  head. 
[121] 


Old  Junk 

"  Ready  to  go?  Of  course  I'm  ready  to  go!  Of 
course.  Why  do  you  suppose  I  asked?  " 

Yeo  went  indoors,  came  out  with  a  bundle  of 
tarpaulins  for  us,  and  began  moving  with  deliber- 
ation along  to  the  Mona.  Something  was  said 
by  the  woman  behind  us,  but  so  quietly  I  did  not 
catch  it.  Her  husband  made  confident  noises  of 
amusement,  and  replied  in  French  that  it  was  al- 
ways the  way  with  these  local  folk  —  always  the 
way.  The  result,  I  gathered,  of  a  -slow  life, 
though  that  was  hardly  the  way  he  put  it. 
Nothing  in  it,  she  could  be  sure.  These  difficul- 
ties were  made  to  raise  the  price.  The  morning 
was  beautiful.  Still,  if  she  did  not  want  to  go 
...  if  she  did  not  want  to  go.  And  his  tone  was 
that  perhaps  she  would  be 'as  absurd  as  that.  I 
heard  no  more,  and  both  followed  us. 

I  got  out  to  the  Mona,  cast  off  her  stern  moor- 
ing, got  in  the  anchor,  and  the  pull  on  that  brought 
us  to  the  stone  steps  of  the  landing-stage.  While 
I  made  the  seats  ready  for  the  voyagers  and 
handed  them  in,  Yeo  took  two  reefs  in  the  lug- 
sail  (an  act  which  seemed,  I  must  say,  with  what 
wind  we  felt  there,  to  be  carrying  his  prescience 
to  bold  lengths)  and  hauled  the  sail  to  its  place. 
I  went  forward  to  lower  the  centre  keel  as  he 
came  aft  with  the  sheet  in  his  hand.  The  Mona 


The  Voyage  of  the  Mona 

sidled  away,  stood  out,  and  then  reached  for  the 
distant  sandhills.  The  village  diminished  and 
concentrated  under  its  hill. 

When  clear  of  the  shelter  of  the  hill,  on  the 
lee  foot  of  which  the  village  shelters  from  the 
westerly  winds,  the  Mona  went  over  suddenly  in 
a  gust  which  put  her  gunwale  in  the  wash  and  kept 
it  there.  The  dipper  came  adrift  and  rattled 
over.  Yeo  eased  her  a  bit,  and  his  uncanny  eyes 
never  shifted  from  their  fixed  scrutiny  ahead. 
Our  passenger  laughed  aloud,  for  his  wife  had 
grasped  him  at  the  unexpected  movement  and  the 
noise.  "  That's  nothing,"  he  assured  he^. 
"  This  is  fine." 

We  cleared  the  shallows  and  were  in  the  chan- 
nel where  the  weight  of  the  incoming  tide  raced 
and  climbed.  The  Monds  light  bows,  meeting 
the  tide,  danced  ecstatically,  sending  over  us  show- 
ers which  caught  in  the  foot  of  the  sail.  The 
weather  in  the  open  was  bright  and  hard,  and  the 
sun  lost  a  little  of  its  warmth  in  the  wind,  which 
was  north  of  west.  The  dunes,  which  had  been 
evanescent  through  distance  in  the  wind  and  light, 
grew  material  and  great.  The  combers,  break- 
ing diagonally  along  that  forsaken  beach,  had 
something  ominous  to  say  of  the  bar.  Even  I 
knew  that,  and  turned  to  look  ahead.  Out  there, 

[123] 


Old  Junk 

across  and  above  the  burnished  sea,  a  regular 
series  of  long  shadowy  walls  were  forming.  They 
advanced  slowly,  grew  darker,  and  grew  higher; 
then  in  their  parapets  appeared  arcs  of  white,  and 
at  once,  where  those  lines  of  sombre  shadows 
had  been,  there  were  plunging  strata  of  white 
clouds.  Other  dark  bands  advanced  from  sea- 
ward continuously.  There  was  a  tremor  and 
sound  as  of  the  shock  and  roll  of  far  thunder. 

We  went  about  again,  steering  for  the  first  out- 
ward mark  of  the  fairway,  the  Mullet  Buoy. 
Only  the  last  house  of  the  village  was  now  looking 
at  us  remotely,  a  tiny  white  cube  which  frequently 
sank,  on  its  precarious  ledge  of  earth,  beneath 
an  intervening  upheaval  of  the  waters.  The  sea 
was  superior  now,  as  we  saw  the  world  from  our 
little  boat.  The  waters  moved  in  from  the  outer 
with  the  ease  of  certain  conquest,  and  the  foun- 
dering shores  vanished  under  each  uplifted  send 
of  the  ocean.  We  rounded  the  buoy.  I  could 
see  the  tide  holding  it  down  aslant  with  heavy 
strands  of  water,  stretched  and  taut.  About  we 
went  again  for  the  lifeboat-house. 

There  was  no  doubt  of  it  now.  We  should  be 
baling  soon.  Yeo,  with  one  brown  paw  on  the 
sheet  and  the  other  on  the  tiller,  had  not  moved, 
nor  even,  so  he  looked,  blinked  the  strange,  un- 


The  Voyage  of  the  Mona 

frowning  eyes  peering  from  under  the  brim  of 
his  hat.  The  Mona  came  on  an  even  keel  by  the 
lifeboat-house,  shook  her  wing  for  a  moment  as 
though  in  delight,  and  was  off  again  dancing  for 
the  Mid  Buoy.  She  was  a  live,  responsive,  and 
happy  bird.  "  Now,  Yeo,"  said  the  passenger 
beside  the  sailor,  beaming  in  proper  enjoyment 
of  this  quick  and  radiant  experience.  "  Didn't  I 
tell  you  so?  What's  the  matter  with  this?  " 

There  was  nothing  the  matter  with  that.  The 
sea  was  blue  and  white.  The  frail  coast,  now  far 
away,  was  of  green  and  gold.  The  sky  was  the 
assurance  of  continued  good.  Our  boat  was 
buoyant  energy.  That  bay,  when  in  its  uplifted 
and  sparkling  mood,  with  the  extent  of  its  liberty 
and  the  coloured  promise  of  its  romantic  adven- 
ture, has  no  hint  at  all  of  the  startling  suddenness 
of  its  shadow,  that  presage  of  its  complex  and 
impersonal  malice. 

Yeo  turned  the  big  features  of  his  impassive 
face  to  his  passenger,  looked  at  him  as  he  would 
at  a  wilful  and  ill-mannered  child,  and  said,  "  In 
five  minutes  we  shall  be  round  the  Mid  Buoy. 
Better  go  back.  If  you  want  to  go  back,  say  so 
now.  Soon  you  won't  be  able  to.  We  may  be 
kept  out.  If  we  are,  don't  blame  me." 

"  Oh,  go  on,  you,"  the  man  said,  smiling  in- 


Old  Junk 

dulgently.     He  was  not  going  to  relinquish  the 
fine  gift  of  this  splendid  time. 

Yeo  put  his  pipe  in  his  mouth  and  resumed  his 
stare  outwards.  He  said  no  more.  On  we  went, 
skimming  over  inflowing  ridges  with  exhilarating 
undulations,  light  as  a  sandpiper.  It  was  really 
right  to  call  that  a  glorious  morning.  I  heard 
the  curlews  fluting  among  the  stones  of  the  Morte 
Bank,  which  must  then  have  been  almost  awash; 
but  I  did  not  look  that  way,  for  the  nearing  view 
of  the  big  seas  breaking  ahead  of  us  fixed  my 
mind  with  the  first  intentness  of  anxiety.  Though 
near  the  top  of  the  flood,  the  fairway  could  not 
be  made  out.  What  from  the  distance  had  ap- 
peared orderly  ranks  of  surf  had  become  a  con- 
vulsive wilderness  of  foam,  piled  and  dazzling, 
the  incontinent  smother  of  a  heavy  ground  swell; 
for  after  all,  though  the  wind  needed  watching,  it 
was  nothing  much.  The  Mona  danced  on  to- 
wards the  anxious  place.  Except  the  distant  hills 
there  was  no  shore.  Our  hills  were  of  water  now 
we  neared  the  bar.  They  appeared  ahead  with 
surprising  suddenness,  came  straight  at  us  as 
though  they  had  been  looking  for  us,  and  the 
discovery  made  them  eager;  and  then,  when  the 
head  of  the  living  mass  was  looking  over  our  boat, 
it  swung  under  us. 

[126] 


The  Voyage  of  the  Mona 

We  were  beyond  the  bar  before  we  knew  it. 
There  were  a  few  minutes  when,  on  either  hand 
of  the  Mona,  but  not  near  enough  to  be  more  than 
an  arresting  spectacle,  ponderous  glassy  billows 
ceaselessly  arose,  projected  wonderful  curves  of 
translucent  parapets  which  threw  shadows  ahead 
of  their  deliberate  advance,  lost  their  delicate 
poise,  and  became  plunging  fields  of  blinding  and 
hissing  snow.  We  sped  past  them  and  were  at 
sea.  Yeo's  knowledge  of  his  work  gives  him 
more  than  the  dexterity  which  overcomes  diffi- 
culties as  it  meets  them;  it  gives  him  the  pre- 
science to  avoid  them. 

The  steady  breeze  carried  away  from  us  the 
noise  of  that  great  tumult  on  the  bar,  and  herd 
was  a  sunny  quietude  where  we  heard  nothing 
but  the  wing  of  the  Mona  when  it  fluttered.  The 
last  of  the  land  was  the  Bar  Buoy,  weltering  and 
tolling  erratically  its  melancholy  bell  in  its  huge 
red  cage.  That  dropped  astern.  The  Mona,  as 
though  she  had  been  exuberant  with  joy  at  the 
promise  of  release,  had  come  out  with  whoops  and 
a  fuss,  but,  being  outside,  settled  down  to  enjoy 
liberty  in  quiet  content.  The  little  lady  with  us, 
for  the  first  time,  appeared  not  sorry  to  be  there. 
The  boat  was  dry.  The  scoured  thwarts  were 
even  hot  to  the  touch.  Our  lady  held  the  brim 
[127] 


Old  Junk 

of  her  big  straw  hat,  looking  out  over  the  slow 
rhythm  of  the  heavy  but  unbroken  seas,  the  deep 
suspirations  of  the  ocean,  and  there  was  even  a 
smile  on  her  delicate  face.  She  crouched  forward 
no  longer,  and  did  not  show  that  timid  hesitation 
between  her  fear  of  sudden  ugly  water,  when  she 
would  have  inclined  to  her  husband's  side,  and 
her  evident  nervousness  also  of  her  mate.  She 
sat  erect,  enjoying  the  slow  uplift  and  descent  of 
the  boat  with  a  responsive  body.  She  gazed  over- 
side into  the  transparent  deeps,  where  large  jelly- 
fish were  shining  like  sunken  moons.  I  got  out 
my  pipe.  This  suggested  something  to  our  other 
passenger,  and  he  got  out  his.  He  fumbled  out 
his  pouch  and  filled  up.  He  then  regarded  the 
loaded  pipe  thoughtfully,  but  presently  put  it 
away,  and  leaned  forward,  gazing  at  the  bottom 
of  the  boat.  I  caught  Yeo's  eye  in  a  very  solemn 
wink. 

The  Mona,  lost  in  the  waste,  coursed  without 
apparent  purpose.  Sometimes  for  a  drowsy 
while  we  headed  into  the  great  light  shining  from 
all  the  Atlantic  which  stretched  before  us  to  Amer- 
ica ;  and  again  we  turned  to  the  coast,  which  was 
low  and  far  beyond  mounting  seas.  By  watching 
one  mark  ashore,  a  grey  blur  which  was  really  the 
tower  of  a  familiar  village  church,  it  was  clear 

[128] 


The  Voyage  of  the  Mona 

Yeo  was  not  making  Pebblecombe  with  any  ease. 
I  glanced  at  him,  and  he  shook  his  head.  He  then 
nodded  it  towards  the  western  headland  of  the 
bay. 

That  was  almost  veiled  by  a  dark  curtain, 
though  not  long  before  the  partitioned  fields  and 
colours  of  its  upper  slopes  were  clear  as  a  mosaic ; 
so  insidiously,  to  the  uninitiated,  do  the  moods  of 
this  bay  change.  Our  lady  was  at  this  moment 
bending  solicitously  towards  her  husband,  whose 
head  was  in  his  hands.  But  he  shook  her  off, 
turning  away  with  a  face  not  quite  so  proud  as 
it  had  been,  for  its  complexion  had  become  that  of 
a  green  canary's.  He  had  acquired  an  expression 
of  holiness,  contemplative  and  sorrowful.  The 
western  coast  had  disappeared  in  the  murk. 
"  Better  have  something  to  eat  now,"  said  Yeo, 
"  while  there's  a  chance." 

The  lady,  after  a  hesitating  glance  at  her  hus- 
band, who  made  no  sign,  his  face  being  hidden  in 
his  arms,  got  out  the  luncheon-basket.  He  looked 
up  once  with  a  face  full  of  misery  and  reproach, 
and  said,  forgetting  the  past  with  boldness, 
"  Don't  you  think  we'd  better  be  getting  back? 
It's  looking  very  dark  over  there." 

Yeo  munched  with  calm  for  a  while,  swallowed, 
and  then  remarked,  while  conning  the  headland, 
[129] 


Old  Junk 

"  It'll  be  darker  yet,  and  then  we  shan't  go  back, 
because  we  can't." 

The  Mona  continuously  soared  upwards  on  the 
hills  and  sank  again,  often  trembling  now,  for 
the  impact  of  the  seas  was  sharper.  The  man 
got  into  the  bottom  of  the  boat  and  groaned. 

Light  clouds,  the  feathery  growth  of  the  threat- 
ening obscurity  which  had  hidden  the  western  land, 
first  spread  to  dim  the  light  of  the  sun,  then  grew 
thick  and  dark  overhead  too,  leaving  us,  after  one 
ray  that  sought  us  out  again  and  at  once  died,  in 
a  chill  gloom.  The  glassy  seas  at  once  became 
opaque  and  bleak.  Their  surface  was  roughened 
with  gusts.  The  delicate  colours  of  the  world,  its 
hopeful  spaciousness,  its  dancing  light,  the  high 
blue  vault,  abruptly  changed  to  the  dim,  cold,  re- 
stricted outlook  of  age.  We  waited. 

As  Yeo  luffed  the  squall  fell  on  us  bodily  with 
a  great  weight  of  wind  and  white  rain,  pressing 
us  into  the  sea.  The  Mona  made  ineffective  leaps, 
trying  to  get  release  from  her  imprisonment,  but 
only  succeeded  in  pouring  water  over  the  inert 
figure  lying  on  the  bottom  boards.  In  a  spasm 
of  fear  he  sprang  up  and  began  to  scramble  wildly 
towards  his  wife,  who  in  her  nervousness  was 
gripping  the  gunwale,  but  was  facing  the  affair 
silently  and  pluckily.  "  Keep  still  there !  "  per- 


The  Voyage  of  the  Mona 

emptorily  ordered  the  sailor ;  and  the  man  bundled 
down  without  a  word,  like  a  dog,  an  abject  heap 
of  wet  rags. 

The  first  weight  of  the  squall  was  released. 
The  Mona  eased.  But  the  rain  set  in  with  stead- 
iness and  definition.  Nothing  was  in  sight  but 
the  waves  shaping  in  the  murk  and  passing  us, 
and  the  blurred  outline  erf  a  ketch  labouring  under 
reduced  canvas  to  leeward.  The  bundle  on  the 
boat's  floor  sat  up  painfully  and  glanced  over  the 
gunwale.  He  made  no  attempt  to  disguise  his 
complete  defeat  by  our  circumstances.  He  saw 
the  ketch,  saw  she  was  bigger,  and  humbly  and 
loudly  implored  Yeo  to  put  him  aboard.  He  did 
not  look  at  his  wife.  His  misery  was  in  full  pos- 
session of  him.  When  near  to  the  ketch  we 
saw  something  was  wrong  with  a  flag  she  was 
flying.  We  got  round  to  her  lee  quarter  and 
hailed  the  three  muffled  figures  on  her  deck. 

"  Can  we  come  aboard?  "  roared  Yeo. 

One  of  the  figures  came  to  the  ship's  side  and 
leaned  over.  "  All  right,"  we  heard,  "  if  you 
don't  mind  sailing  with  a  corpse." 

Yeo  put  it  to  his  passengers.  The  woman  said 
nothing.  Her  pale  face,  pitifully  tiny  and  ap- 
pealing within  a  sailor's  tarpaulin  hat,  showed  an 
innocent  mind  startled  by  the  brutality  of  a  world 


Old  Junk 

she  did  not  know,  but  a  mind  controlled  and  alert. 
You  could  guess  she  expected  nothing  now  but 
the  worst,  and  had  been  schooling  herself  to  face 
it.  Her  husband,  when  he  knew  what  was  on  that 
ship,  repudiated  the  vessel  with  horror.  Yet  we 
had  no  sooner  fallen  slightly  away  than  he  looked 
up  again,  was  reminded  once  more  that  she  stood 
so  much  higher  than  our  boat,  and  cried,  "  Yes, 
yes!" 

The  two  craft  imperceptibly  approached,  as  by 
gravitation.  The  men  of  the  ketch  saw  we  had 
changed  our  minds,  and  made  ready  to  receive 
us.  On  one  noisy  uplift  of  a  wave  we  got  the 
lady  inboard.  Waiting  another  opportunity, 
floundering  about  below  the  black  wall  of  the  ship, 
presently  it  came,  and  we  shoved  over  just  any- 
how the  helpless  bulk  of  the  man.  He  disap- 
peared within  the  ship  like  a  shapeless  sack,  and 
bumped  like  one.  When  I  got  over,  I  saw  the 
Mona's  mast,  which  was  thrusting  and  falling  by 
the  side  of  the  ketch,  making  wild  oscillations  and 
eccentrics,  suddenly  vanish;  and  then  appeared 
Yeo,  who  carried  a  tow-line  aft  and  made  fast. 

The  skipper  of  the  ketch  had  been  drowned,  we 
were  told.  They  were  bringing  his  body  home. 
The  helmsman  indicated  a  form  lashed  in  a  sail- 
cloth to  the  hatch.  They  were  standing  on  and 


The  Voyage  of  the  Mona 

off,  waiting  to  get  it  over  the  bar.  Yeo  they 
knew  so  well  that  hardly  any  words  passed  be- 
tween them.  They  were  glad  to  put  the  piloting 
in  his  hands.  He  took  the  wheel  of  the  Judy  of 
Padstow. 

The  substantial  deck  of  the  Judy  was  a  great 
relief  after  the  dizzy  gyrations  of  the  aerial 
Mona;  and  our  lady,  with  a  half-glance  at  what 
on  the  hatch  was  so  grimly  indifferent  to  all  that 
could  happen  now,  even  smiled  again,  perhaps  with 
a  new  sense  of  safety.  She  saw  her  husband  set- 
tled in  a  place  not  too  wet,  and  got  about  the  ven- 
erable boards  of  the  Judy,  looking  at  the  old  gear 
with  curiosity,  glancing,  with  her  head  dropped 
back,  into  the  dark  intricacy  of  rigging  upheld  by 
the  ponderous  mainmast  as  it  swayed  back  and 
forth.  Every  time  the  men  went  hurriedly  tramp- 
ling to  some  point  of  the  running  gear  she  watched 
what  they  were  at.  For  hours  we  beat  about,  in  a 
great  noise  of  waters,  waiting  for  that  opportunity 
at  the  entrance  to  home  and  comfort.  Once  Yeo 
took  us  as  far  towards  the  vague  mist  of  surf  as 
the  dismal  tolling  of  the  Bar  Buoy,  but  evidently 
did  not  like  the  look  of  it,  and  stood  out  again. 

At  last,  having  decided,  he  shouted  orders, 
there  was  a  burst  of  activity,  and  we  headed  for 
the  bad  place.  Soon  we  should  know. 

[133] 


Old  Junk 

The  Judy  began  to  plunge  alarmingly.  The 
incoming  rollers  at  times  swept  her  along  with  a 
rush,  and  Yeo  had  his  hands  full.  Her  bowsprit 
yawned,  rose  and  fell  hurriedly,  the  Judy's  un- 
steady dexter  pointing  in  nervous  excitement  at 
what  was  ahead  of  her.  But  Yeo  held  her  to  it, 
though  those  heavy  following  seas  so  demoralized 
the  Judy  that  it  was  clear  it  was  all  Yeo  could  do 
to  keep  her  to  her  course.  Columns  of  spray  ex- 
ploded ahead,  driving  in  on  us  like  shot. 

"Look  out!"  cried  Yeo.  I  looked.  Astern 
was  a  grey  hill,  high  over  us,  fast  overtaking  us, 
the  white  turmoil  of  its  summit  already  stream- 
ing down  its  long  slope.  It  accelerated,  as  if  it 
could  see  it  would  soon  be  too  late.  It  nearly  was, 
but  not  quite.  A  cataract  roared  over  the  poop, 
and  Yeo  vanished.  The  Judy,  in  a  panic,  made 
an  attempt  at  a  move  which  would  have  been  fatal 
then;  but  she  was  checked  and  her  head  steadied. 
I  could  do  nothing  but  hold  the  lady  firm  and  grasp 
a  pin  in  its  rail.  The  flood  swept  us,  brawling 
round  the  gear,  foundering  the  hatch.  For  a 
moment -I  thought  it  was  a  case,  and  saw  nothing 
but  maniacal  water.  Then  the  foam  subsided  to 
clear  torrents  which  flung  about  violently  with  the 
ship's  movement.  The  men  were  in  the  rigging. 
Yeo  was  rigid  at  the  wheel,  his  eyes  on  the  future. 

[134] 


The  Voyage  of  the  Mona 

I  could  not  see  the  other  passenger  till  his  wife 
screamed,  and  then  I  saw  him.  Two  figures  rolled 
in  a  flood  that  was  pouring  to  the  canting  of  the 
deck,  and  one  of  them  desperately  cletched  at  the 
other  for  aid.  But  the  other  was  the  dead  skip- 
per, washed  from  his  place  on  the  hatch. 

We  were  over  the  bar  again,  and  the  deck  be- 
came level.  But  it  remained  the  bottom  of  a 
shallow  well  in  which  floated  with  indifference  the 
one-time  master  of  the  Judy,  face  downwards,  and 
who  presently  stranded  amidships.  Our  passen- 
ger reclined  on  the  vacated  hatch,  his  eyes  wide 
with  childish  and  unspoken  terror,  and  fixed  on 
his  wife,  whose  ministering  hands  he  fumbled  for 
as  does  a  child  for  his  mother's  when  he  wakes  at 
night  after  a  dream  of  evil. 


[-3S] 


XII.     The  Lascar's  Walking- 
Stick 

THE  big  face  of  Limehouse  Church  clock 
stared  through  the  window  at  us.  It  is 
rather  a  senseless  face,  because  it  is  so 
full  of  cracks  that  you  can  find  any  hour  in  it  you 
do  not  want,  especially  when  in  a  hurry.  But 
nobody  with  a  life  that  had  not  wide  areas  of 
waste  leisure  in  it  would  ever  visit  Hammond  now, 
where  he  lives  in  a  tenement  building,  in  a  room 
which  overlooks  the  roofs  and  railway  arches  of 
Limehouse.  Just  outside  his  window  the  tower 
of  the  church  is  rather  too  large  and  too  close. 

Hammond  has  rooms  in  the  tenement  which  are 
above  the  rest  of  the  street.  He  surmounts  many 
layers  of  dense  humanity.  The  house  is  not  the 
usual  model  dwelling.  Once  it  knew  better  days. 
Once  it  was  the  residence  of  a  shipowner,  in  the 
days  when  the  London  docks  were  full  of  clippers, 
and  shipowners  husbanded  their  own  ships  and 
liked  to  live  near  their  work.  The  house  has  a 
broad  and  noble  staircase,  having  a  carved  hand- 
rail as  wide  as  a  span;  but  much  of  the  old  and 

[136] 


The  Lascar's  Walking-Stick 

carved  interior  woodwork  of  the  house  is  missing 
—  firewood  sometimes  runs  short  there  —  and  the 
rest  is  buried  under  years  of  paint  and  dirt. 

Hammond  never  knows  how  many  people  share 
the  house  with  him.  "  I've  tried  to  find  out,  but 
the  next  day  one  of  'em  has  died  and  two  more  are 
born."  It  is  such  a  hive  that  most  of  Hammond's 
friends  gave  up  visiting  him  after  discovering  in 
what  place  he  had  secluded  himself;  but  there  he 
stays  with  his  books  and  his  camera,  his  pubs  and 
his  lightermen,  Jews,  Chinamen,  sailors,  and  dock- 
labourers.  Occasionally  a  missionary  from  the 
studios  of  Hempstead  or  Chelsea  goes  down  to 
sort  out  Hammond  from  his  surroundings,  and  to 
look  him  over  for  damage,  when  found. 

"  Did  I  ever  tell  you  about  Jabberjee?  "  Ham- 
mond asked  me  that  afternoon. 

No,  he  hadn't.  Some  of  Hammond's  work, 
which  he  had  been  showing  me,  was  scattered  over 
the  floor,  and  he  stepped  among  the  litter  and 
came  and  looked  through  the  window  with  me. 
"  A  funny  thing  happened  to  me  here,"  he  said, 
"  the  other  evening.  A  pal  of  mine  died.  The 
bills  which  advertise  for  the  recovery  of  his 
body  —  you  can  see  'em  in  any  pub  about 
here  —  call  him  Joseph  Cherry,  commonly  called 
Ginger.  He  was  a  lighterman,  you  know. 

[137] 


Old  Junk 

There  was  a  sing-song  for  the  benefit  of  his  wife 
and  kids  round  at  the  George  and  Dragon,  and  I 
was  going. 

"  On  my  way  I  stopped  to  look  in  at  my 
favourite  pawnshop.  Do  you  know  the  country 
about  here?  Well,  you  have  to  mind  your  eye. 
You  never  know  what  will  turn  up.  I  never  knew 
such  a  place.  Not  all  of  Limehouse  gets  into  the 
Directory,  not  by  a  lot.  It  is  bound  on  the  east 
by  China,  on  the  north  by  Greenland,  on  the 
south  by  Cape  Horn,  and  on  the  west  by  London 
Bridge. 

"  The  main  road  near  here  is  the  foreshore  of 
London.  There's  no  doubt  the  sea  beats  on  it ; — 
unless  you  are  only  a  Chelsea  chap,  with  your  eyes 
bunged  up  with  paint.  All  sorts  of  things  drift 
along.  All  sorts  of  wreckage.  It's  like  finding 
a  cocoanut  or  a  palm  bole  stranded  in  a  Cornish 
cove.  The  stories  I  hear  —  one  of  you  writer 
fellers  ought  to  come  and  stay  here,  only  I  sup- 
pose you  are  too  busy  writing  about  things  that 
really  matter.  You  are  like  the  bright  youths  in 
the  art  schools,  drawing  plaster  casts  till  they 
don't  know  life  when  they  see  it. 

l<  Well,  about  this  pawnshop.  It's  a  sort  of 
pocket  —  you  know  those  places  on  the  beach 
where  a  lot  of  flotsam  strands  —  oceanic  treasure- 

[138] 


The  Lascar's  Walking-Stick 

trove.  I  suppose  the  currents,  for  some  reason 
sailors  could  explain,  eddy  round  this  pawnshop 
and  leave  things  there.  That  pawnshop  is  the 
luckiest  corner  along  our  beach,  and  I  stopped  to 
turn  over  the  sea  litter. 

"  Of  course,  there  was  a  lot  of  chronometers, 
and  on  top  of  a  pile  of  'em  was  a  carved  cocoanut. 
South  Sea  Islands,  I  suppose.  Full  of  curious  in- 
voluted lines  —  a  mist  of  lines  —  with  a  face 
peering  through  the  mist,  if  you  looked  close 
enough.  Rows  of  cheap  watches  hung  on  their 
chains,  and  there  was  a  lot  of  second-hand  meers- 
chaum pipes,  and  a  walrus  tusk,  carved  about  a 
little.  What  took  my  eye  was  an  old  Chinese 
bowl,  because  inside  it  was  a  little  jade  idol  —  a 
fearful  little  wretch,  with  mother-o'-pearl  eyes. 
It  would  squat  in  your  thoughts  like  a  toad,  that 
idol  —  eh,  where  does  Jabberjee  come  in?  Well, 
here  he  comes. 

"  I  didn't  know  he  was  coming  at  all,  you  un- 
derstand. I  shouldn't  have  jumped  more  if  the 
idol  had  winked  at  me. 

"  There  stood  Jabberjee.  I  didn't  know  that 
was  his  name,  though.  He  was  christened 
Jabberjee  after  the  trouble,  by  a  learned  Lime- 
house  schoolboy,  who  wore  spectacles.  Do  I 
make  myself  clear?  " 

[«39] 


Old  Junk 

I  murmured  that  I  was  a  little  dense,  but  time 
might  carry  out  improvements.  Hammond  was 
talking  on,  though,  without  looking  at  me. 
4  There  the  Lascar  was.  Lots  of  'em  about  here, 
you  know.  He  was  the  usual  bundle  of  bones  and 
blue  cotton  rags,  and  his  gunny  bags  flapped  on 
his  stick  legs  like  banners.  He  looked  as  uncer- 
tain as  a  candle-flame  in  a  draught.  Perhaps  he 
was  sixteen.  I  dunno.  Maybe  he  was  sixty. 
You  can't  tell  these  Johnnies.  He  had  a  shaven 
cranium,  -and  his  tight  scalp  might  have  been 
slipped  over  the  bony  bosses  of  his  head  with  a 
shoehorn. 

"  I  don't  know  what  he  was  saying.  He 
cringed,  and  said  something  very  quickly;  I 
thought  he  was  speaking  of  something  he  had 
concealed  on  his  person.  Smuggled  goods,  likely. 
Tobacco. 

"  Looking  over  his  shoulder,  wishing  he  would 
go  away,  I  saw  a  policeman  in  the  dusk  at  the  op- 
posite corner,  with  his  eye  on  us. 

'  Then  I  could  see  something  was  concealed 
under  the  Lascar's  flimsies.  He  seemed  trying 
to  keep  it  quiet.  He  kept  on  talking,  and  I 
couldn't  make  out  what  he  was  driving  at.  I 
was  looking  at  his  clothes,  wondering  what  the 
deuce  he  had  concealed  there.  At  last  something 
[140] 


The  Lascar's  Walking-Stick 

came  out  of  his  rags.  Talk  about  making  you 
jump  !  It  really  did  look  like  the  head  of  a  snake. 
It  was,  too,  but  attached  to  a  walking-stick  —  sort 
of  handle.  A  scaly  head  it  was,  in  some  shiny 
material.  Its  eyes  were  like  a  pair  of  rubies. 
They  picked  up  the  light  somehow,  and  glittered. 

"  Now  listen.  I  looked  up  then  into  the  Las- 
car's face.  I  was  surprised  to  find  he  was  taller. 
Much  taller.  He  put  his  face  forward  and  down, 
so  that  I  wanted  to  step  back. 

"  He  had  an  ugly  look.  He  was  smiling;  the 
sweep  was  smiling,  as  though  he  knew  he  was  a 
lot  cleverer  than  I.  Another  thing.  The  place 
was  suddenly  quiet,  and  the  houses  and  shops 
seemed  to  have  fallen  far  back.  The  pavement 
was  wider. 

"  There  was  something  else,  I  noticed.  The 
bobby  had  left  the  street  corner,  and  was  walk- 
ing our  way.  The  curious  thing  was,  though,  the 
more  he  walked  the  farther  off  he  got,  as  though 
the  road  was  being  stretched  under  his  feet. 

"  Mind  you,  I  was  still  awake  and  critical. 
You  know  there  is  a  substratum  of  your  mind 
which  is  critical,  when  you  are  dreaming,  stand- 
ing looking  on  outside  you,  like  a  spectator. 

"  Then  the  stick  touched  my  hand.  I  shouted. 
I  must  have  yelled  jolly  loud,  I  think.  I  couldn't 


Old  Junk 

help  it.  That  horrible  thing  seemed  to  wriggle  in 
my  fingers. 

"  It  was  the  shout  which  brought  the  crowd. 
There  was  the  policeman.  I  can't  make  out  how 
he  got  there.  *  Now,  what's  your  little  game?  ' 
he  said.  That  brought  the  buildings  up  with  a 
rush,  and  broke  the  road  into  the  usual  clatter. 

"  It  was  all  quite  simple.  There  was  nothing 
in  it  then  out  of  the  ordinary.  Just  a  usual  Las- 
car, very  frightened,  waving  a  cheap  cane  with  a 
handle  like  a  snake's  head.  Then  another  police- 
man came  up  in  a  hurry,  and  pushed  through  the 
crowd.  The  crowd  Tras  on  my  side,  maudlin  and 
sympathetic.  They  knew  all  about  it.  The 
coolie  had  tried  to  stab  me.  An  eager  young  lady 
in  an  apron  asked  a  boy  in  front  —  he  had  just 
forced  through  —  what  was  the  matter.  He 
knew  all  about  it. 

"  '  The  Indian  tried  to  bite  the  copper.' 

'"Tried  to  bite  him?' 

14 '  Not  'arf  he  didn't.' 

'  The  Hindoo  was  now  nearly  hysterical,  and 
the  kiddies  were  picking  up  his  language  fast. 
'  Now  then,  old  Jabberjee,'  said  one  nipper  in 
spectacles.  The  crowd  was  laughing,  and  surg- 
ing towards  the  police.  I  managed  to  edge  out 
of  it. 

[142] 


The  Lascar's  Walking-Stick 

"  'What's  the  trouble?  '     I  asked  a  carman. 

"  '  You  see  that  P.  and  O.  Johnny?  '  he  said. 
'  Well,  he  knocked  down  that  kid  ' —  indicating 
the  boy  in  spectacles  — '  and  took  tuppence  from 
him.' 

"  I  thought  a  lot  about  the  whole  thing  on  the 
way  home,"  said  Hammond.  "  I  tell  you  the 
yarn  for  you  to  explain  to  the  chaps  who  like  to 
base  their  beliefs  on  the  sure  ground  of  what  they 
can  understand." 


[•43] 


XIII.     The  Extra  Hand 

OLD  George  Galsworthy  and  I  sat  on  the 
headland  above  the  estuary,  looking  into 
the  vacancy  which  was  the  Atlantic  on 
an  entranced  silver  evening.  The  sky  was  over- 
cast. There  was  no  wind,  and  no  direct  sun. 
The  light  was  refined  and  diffused  through  a  thin 
veiling  of  pearl.  Sea  and  sky  were  one.  As 
though  they  were  suspended  in  space  we  saw  a 
tug,  having  a  barque  in  tow,  far  but  distinct,  in 
the  light  of  the  bay,  tiny  models  of  ebony  set  in 
a  vast  brightness.  They  were  poised  in  the  il- 
lumination, and  seemed  to  be  motionless,  but  we 
knew  they  were  moving  down  on  us.  "  Here  she 
comes,"  said  the  seaman,  "  and  a  fine  evening  it  is 
for  the  end  of  her  last  voyage."  Shipbreakers 
had  bought  that  barque.  She  was  coming  in  to  be 
destroyed. 

The  stillness  of  the  world,  and  its  lustre  in 
which  that  fine  black  shape  was  centred  and  was 
moving  to  her  end,  made  me  feel  that  headlands, 
sea,  and  sky  knew  what  was  known  to  the  two 
watchers  on  the  hill.  She  was  condemned.  The 

[144] 


The  Extra  Hand 

ship  was  central,  and  the  regarding  world  stood 
about  her  in  silence.  Sombre  and  stately  she 
came,  in  the  manner  of  the  tragic  proud,  superior 
to  the  compelling  fussiness  of  little  men,  making 
no  resistance.  The  spring  tide  was  near  full.  It 
had  flooded  the  marsh  lands  below  us,  but  not 
with  water,  for  those  irregular  pools  resplendent 
as  mirrors  were  deeps  of  light.  The  hedgerows 
were  strips  of  the  earth's  rind  remaining  above  a 
profound.  The  light  below  the  lines  of  black 
hedges  was  antipodean.  The  barque  moved  irt 
slowly.  She  did  not  go  past  the  lighthouse,  and 
past  our  hill,  into  the  harbour  beyond,  like  a  ship 
about  the  business  of  her  life.  She  turned  into 
the  shallows  below  us,  and  stood  towards  the 
foot  of  the  hill. 

"  She's  altered  a  little,"  meditated  Galsworthy. 
"  They've  shortened  her  sticks,  those  Norwegians, 
and  painted  her  their  beastly  mustard  colour  and 
white.  She's  hogbacked,  too.  Well,  she's  old." 
The  old  man  continued  his  quiet  meditation.  He 
was  really  talking  to  himself,  I  think,  and  I  was 
listening  to  his  thoughts. 

"Look!"  cried  Galsworthy,  suddenly  rising, 
his  hand  gripping  my  shoulder.  The  tug  had  cast 
off  and  was  going  about.  The  ship  came  right 
on.  There  was  an  interval  of  time  between  her 

[145] 


Old  Junk 

and  the  shore  which  was  breathless  and  prolonged. 

"  She's  aground !  "  exclaimed  the  old  man  to 
himself,  and  the  hand  on  my  shoulder  gripped 
harder.  He  stood  regarding  her  for  some  time. 
"  She's  done,"  he  said,  and  presently  released  me, 
sitting  down  beside  me  again,  still  looking  at  her 
moodily,  smoking  'his  pipe.  He  was  silent  for 
a  time.  Perhaps  he  had  in  his  mind  that  he  too 
had  taken  the  ground.  It  was  sunset,  and  there 
she  was,  and  there  was  he,  and  no  more  sparkling 
morning  tides  out  of  port  for  them  any  more. 

Presently  he  turned  to  me.  "  There's  a  queer 
story  about  her.  She  carried  an  extra  hand.  I'll 
tell  you.  It's  a  queer  yarn.  She  had  one  man  at 
a  muster  more  than  signed  for  her.  At  night,  you 
couldn't  get  into  the  rigging  ahead  of  that  chap. 
There  you'd  find  him  just  too  much  ahead  of  the 
first  lad  who  had  jumped  at  the  call  to  be  prop- 
erly seen,  you  know.  You  could  see  him,  but  you 
couldn't  make  him  out.  So  the  chap  behind  him 
was  in  no  'hurry,  after  the  first  rush.  Well,  it 
made  it  pretty  hard  for  her  old  man  to  round  up 
a  crew.  He  had  to  find  men  who  didn't  know 
her.  Men  in  Poplar  who  didn't  know  her,  those 
days,  were  scarce.  She  was  a  London  clipper  and 
she  carried  a  famous  flag.  Everybody  knew  her 
but  mep  who  weren't  sailors. 


The  Extra  Hand 

"  Well,  the  boys  said  she  had  a  bit  of  gibbet- 
post  about  her  somewhere.  Ah !  maybe.  I  don't 
know.  Anyway,  I  say  she  was  a  fine  clipper.  I 
knew  her.  She  was  the  pick  of  the  bunch,  to  my 
eye.  But  she  was  full  of  trouble.  I  must  say 
that.  When  she  was  launched  she  killed  a  man. 
First  she  stuck  on  the  ways,  and  then  she  went  off 
all  unexpected,  like  a  bird.  That  was  always  a 
trick  of  hers.  You  never  knew  her.  And  when 
she  was  tired  of  headwinds,  she'd  find  a  dead 
calm.  That  was  the  kind  of  ship  she  was.  A 
skipper  would  look  at  her,  and  swear  she  was  the 
ship  for  him.  The  other  chaps  didn't  understand 
her,  he'd  say.  A  ship  like  that's  sure  to  be  good, 
he'd  tell  you.  But  when  he'd  got  her  she'd  turn 
his  hair  grey.  She  was  that  sort. 

"  One  voyage  she  was  six  weeks  beating  to 
westward  round  Cape  Horn.  We  had  a  bad  time. 
I'd  never  seen  such  seas.  We  could  do  no  good 
there.  It  was  a  voyage  and  a  half.  She  lost 
the  second  mate  overboard,  and  she  lost  gear.  So 
the  old  man  put  back  to  the  Plate.  And,  of 
course,  all  her  crowd  deserted,  to  a  man.  They 
said  they  wanted  to  see  their  homes  again  before 
they  died.  They  said  there  was  something  wrong 
about  that  ship,  and  they  left  all  their  truck 
aboard,  and  made  themselves  scarce.  The  old 

[147] 


Old  Junk 

man  scraped  up  a  new  crowd.  They  came  aboard 
at  dusk,  one  day,  and  they  stared  about  them. 
'  Look,  sir,'  said  one  of  them,  '  what's  that  up 
there?  What's  that  figgerhead  in  y'r  main  to'gal- 
lan'  cross-tree?'  I  was  the  mate,  you  know.  I 
talked  to  that  chap.  He  learned  something  about 
getting  the  booze  out  of  him  before  he  came 
aboard.  He  got  a  move  on. 

"  We  were  over  four  months  making  'Frisco 
that  voyage,  and  she  the  sailer  she  was.  Why, 
she's  logged  thirteen  knots.  But  she  could  get 
nothing  right,  not  for  long.  She  was  like  those 
fine-looking  women  men  can't  live  without,  and 
can't  live  with.  She'd  break  a  man's  heart. 
When  we  got  back  to  Blackwall  we  heard  she  was 
sold  to  foreigners  .  .  .  but  there  she  is  now, 
come  home  to  die.  I  bet  old  Yeo  don't  care  much 
about  her  troubles,  though.  He'll  break  her  up, 
troubles  and  all,  and  she's  for  firewood  .  .  . 
there  you  are,  my  dear,  there  you  are  .  .  .  but 
you  should  have  seen  her  at  Blackwall,  in  the  old 
days  .  .  .  what's  the  East  India  Dock  Road  like, 
these  times?" 

The  next  day,  at  low  water,  I  stood  beneath 
her,  and  watched  a  cascade  pouring  incessantly 
from  a  patched  wound  in  her  side,  for  she  had 
been  in  collision,  and  that  was  why  she  was  con- 

[148] 


The  Extra  Hand 

demned.  She  was  careened,  like  a  slain  thing, 
and  with  the  dank  rocks  and  weeds  about,  and  that 
monotonous  pour  from  her  wound,  she  might 
have  been  a  venerable  sea  monster  from  which 
the  life  was  draining.  Yeo  hailed  me  from  above, 
and  up  the  lively  rope  ladder  I  went.  She  had  a 
Norwegian  name,  but  that  was  not  her  name. 
All  Poplar  knew  her  once.  There  she  was  born. 
She  was  one  of  ours.  That  stone  arch  of  John 
Company,  the  entrance  to  the  East  India  Dock, 
once  framed  her  picture,  and  her  topmasts  looked 
down  to  the  Dock  Road,  when  she  was  at  home. 
I  could  believe  Galsworthy.  She  was  not  so 
empty  as  she  seemed.  She  had  a  freight,  and 
Yeo  did  not  know  it.  Poplar  and  the  days  of 
the  clippers !  I  knew  she  was  invisibly  peopled. 
Of  course  she  was  haunted. 

The  shipwrecker  and  I  went  about  her  canted 
decks,  groped  through  dark  recesses  where  it 
might  have  been  the  rats  we  heard,  and  peered 
into  the  sonorous  shades  of  the  empty  cargo 
spaces.  In  the  cabins  we  puzzled  over  those 
relics  left  by  her  last  crew,  which,  without  their 
associations,  seemed  to  have  no  reason  in  them. 
There  was  a  mocking  silence  in  the  cabins.  What 
sort  of  men  were  they  who  were  familiar  with 
these  doors?  And  before  the  northmen  had  her, 

[H9] 


Old  Junk 

and  she  was  English,  trim,  and  flew  skysails  and 
studding-sails,  and  carried  lady  passengers,  who 
were  the  Poplar  boys  that  laughed  and  yarned 
here?  She  was  more  mine  than  Yeo's.  Let  him 
claim  her  timber.  All  the  rich  freight  of  her 
past  was  mine.  I  was  the  intimate  of  every  ghost 
she  had. 

We  sat  in  a  cabin  which  had  been  her  skipper's. 
There  was  a  litter  on  the  floor  of  old  newspapers 
and  documents,  receipts  for  harbour  dues,  the  cap- 
tain's copies  of  bills  of  lading,  store  lists,  and 
some  picture-postcards  from  the  old  man's  family. 
A  lump  of  indurated  plum-duff,  like  a  geological 
specimen,  was  on  the  table.  There  was  a  slant 
of  sunshine  through  a  square  port  window,  and 
it  rested  on  a  decayed  suit  of  oilskins.  We  sat 
silent,  the  shipbreaker  having  finished  estimating 
to  me,  with  enthusiasm,  what  she  had  of  copper. 
He  was  now  waiting  for  his  men  to  return  to 
work.  They  were  going  to  take  the  masts  out  of 
her.  But  I  was  wondering  what  I  could  do  to  lay 
that  ghost  of  my  old  shipping  parish  which  this 
craft  had  conjured  in  my  mind.  And  as  we  both 
sat  there,  looking  at  nothing,  we  heard,  at  the 
end  of  the  alley-way,  a  door  stealthily  latch. 

Yeo  sprang  to  his  feet  at  once,  staring  and  lis- 
tening. He  looked  at  me,  surprised  and  puzzled. 
['So] 


The  Extra  Hand 

"  Of  all  the "  he  began,  and  stopped.     He 

took  his  seat  again.  "  Why,  of  course,"  he  said. 
"  She's  settling.  That's  what  it  is.  She's  set- 
tling. But  my  men,  the  fools,  will  have  it  there's 
some  one  pottering  about  this  ship." 

May  igog. 


XIV.     The  Sou '-Wester 

THE  trees  of  the  Embankment  Gardens 
were  nearly  stripped  of  their  leaves,  and 
were  tossing  widely.  Shutting  the  eyes, 
you  could  think  you  heard  the  sweep  of  deep- 
water  seas  with  strident  crests.  The  greater 
buildings,  like  St.  Paul's,  might  have  been  prom- 
ontories looming  in  a  driving  murk.  The  low 
sky  was  dark  and  riven,  and  was  falling  headlong. 
But  I  liked  the  look  of  it.  Here,  plainly,  was  the 
end  of  the  halcyon  days, —  good-bye  to  the  sun, — 
but  I  felt,  for  a  reason  I  could  not  remember  and 
did  not  try  to  recall,  pleased  and  satisfied  with  this 
gale  and  its  wrack.  The  clouds  seemed  curiously 
familiar.  I  had  seen  them  before  somewhere; 
they  were  reminding  me  of  a  lucky  but  forgotten 
occasion  of  the  past.  Whatever  it  was,  no  doubt 
it  was  better  than  anything  likely  to  happen  to- 
day. It  was  something  good  in  an  old  world  we 
have  lost.  But  it  was  something  of  that  old 
world,  like  an  old  book  which  reads  the  same  to- 
day; or  an  old  friend  surviving,  who  would  help  to 


The  Sou'-Wester 

make  endurable  the  years  to  come.  I  need  not 
try  to  remember  it.  I  had  got  it,  whatever  it 
was,  and  that  was  all  the  assurance  of  its  wealth 
I  wanted.  Then  from  the  river  came  a  call,  deep, 
prolonged,  and  melancholy.  .  .  . 

So  that  was  it!  No  wonder  the  low  clouds 
driving,  and  the  wind  in  the  trees,  worked  that  in 
my  mind.  *  The  tide  was  near  full.  There  was 
a  steamer  moving  in  the  Pool.  She  was  outward 
bound. 

Outward  bound!  I  saw  again  the  black  build- 
ings of  a  Welsh  coaling  port  at  evening,  and  a 
vague  steamer  (but  no  liner,  that  was  plain 
enough,  no  liner),  and  two  men  beside  me,  who 
were  going  out  with  me  in  her,  watching  her. 
She  was  little  more  than  a  shadow  with  a  port 
light.  She  gave  a  deep,  shuddering  warning. 
She  was  off.  We  had  been  for  a  last  run  round 
the  town.  We  were  to  board  her  in  the  outer 
lock.  The  wind  was  whining  in  the  telegraph- 
wires.  It  was  hazing  the  pools  of  rain,  which 
were  bright  and  bleak  with  the  last  of  a  brazen 
yellow  sunset.  "  Happy  days!  "  said  one  of  us. 
"Who  wouldn't  sell  that  little  farm?  .  .  .  Now 
we're  in  for  it.  It  will  be  the  devil  of  an  old, 
tough  night."  (Where  this  night  is  that  friend? 
Mine-sweeping?  Patrolling?  Or  is  he 

[153] 


Old  Junk 

But  I  hope  not.  He  was  a  good  fellow  and  a 
sailor.) 

We  were  better  off  than  we  knew  then,  though 
then  we  thought  it  would  be  hard  luck  for  a  dog. 
Our  thoughts  turned  to  the  snug  indoor  places  of 
the  lighted  town  behind  us ;  for  in  the  small  hours 
we  should  be  plunging  off  Hartland;  with  the  Wolf 
to  come,  and  the  Bay  after  that;  and  the  glass 
falling.  But  youth  did  know  it  was  young,  and 
that  this  night,  wild  and  forbidding,  and  the  old 
Sirius  rolling  away  into  it,  would  look  fine  when 
seen  through  tobacco  smoke  in  the  years  to  come. 

For  the  light  we  saw  at  sea  never  fades.  It 
survives  our  voyaging.  It  shines  into  the  mind 
and  abides  there.  We  watched  the  horizon 
steadfastly  for  lands  we  did  not  know.  The  sun 
came  up  each  day  to  a  world  that  was  not  the 
same,  no  matter  how  it  looked.  At  night  we 
changed  our  stars.  We  heard  nothing  but  the 
wind  and  the  waves,  and  the  quiet  voice  of  a  ship- 
mate yarning  with  his  pipe  in  his  mouth.  The 
elements  could  interrupt  us,  but  not  the  world. 
Not  a  gull  of  that  was  left. 

And  somehow  the  beginning  of  a  voyage 
seemed  to  be  always  in  westerly  weather,  at  the 
beginning  of  winter.  The  English  land  to  me  is 
a  twilight  coast  with  clouds  like  iron  above  it 

t'54] 


The  Sou'-Wester 

poised  in  a  windy  light  of  aquamarine,  and  a  sun- 
set of  lucid  saffron.  Against  that  western  light, 
bright,  bare,  and  penetrating  as  the  ruthless  judg- 
ment of  impersonal  divinity,  the  polished  waves 
mount,  outlined  as  hard  as  jet,  and  move  towards 
us.  The  ship's  prow  rises  to  cut  out  segments  of 
the  west;  falls  into  the  dark  hollows  of  waves. 
The  wind  pours  over  us,  an  icy  and  ponderable 
flood,  and  is  increasing.  Where  England  has  sunk 
in  the  dark  one  clear  eye,  like  a  yellow  planet, 
comes  out  to  watch  us. 

One  thinks  of  the  sea  now  as  something  gone, 
like  the  old  world.  There  once  a  voyager  was 
sundered  from  insistent  trifles.  He  was  with 
simple,  elemental  things  that  have  been  since  time 
began,  and  he  had  to  meet  them  with  what  skill 
he  had,  the  wind  for  his  friend  and  adversary, 
the  sun  his  clock,  the  stars  for  counsel,  and  the 
varying  wilderness  his  hope  and  his  doubt.  But 
the  cruel  misery  of  man  did  not  intrude.  He  was 
free  from  that.  All  men  at  sea  were  his  fellows, 
whatever  their  language,  an  ancient  fraternity 
whose  bond  was  a  common  but  unspoken  knowl- 
edge of  a  hidden  but  imminent  fate.  They  could 
be  strangers  ashore,  but  not  at  sea. 

But  that  is  gone  now.  The  sea  is  poisoned 
with  a  deadly  sorrow  not  its  own,  which  man  has 

[155] 


Old  Junk 

put  there.  The  spaciousness  of  the  great  vault 
above  the  round  of  waters  is  soiled  by  the  gibber- 
ing anxieties  of  a  thousand  gossipers  of  evil,  which 
the  ship  catches  in  its  wires,  to  darken  the  night  of 
its  little  company  with  surmises  of  distant 
malignity  and  woe.  It  is  something  to  retain  a 
little  of  the  light  of  the  days  at  sea  which  have 
passed.  They  too  had  their  glooms,  but  they  came 
of  the  dignity  of  advancing  storms,  and  the  fear 
which  great  seas  put  in  men  who  held  a  resolute 
course  nevertheless,  knowing  that  their  weird  was 
one  which  good  seamen  have  faced  since  first  the 
unknown  beyond  the  land  was  dared;  faith,  cour- 
age, and  the  loyalty  of  comrades,  which  all  the 
waters  of  the  world  cannot  drown.  But  the  heart 
of  man,  which  will  face  the  worst  the  elements 
can  do,  sickens  at  the  thought  of  the  perverse  and 
inexplicable  cruelty  of  his  fellows. 

October  1917, 


[•56] 


XV.     On  Leave 

COMING  out  of  Victoria  Station  into  the 
stir  of  London  again,  on  leave  from 
Flanders,  must  give  as  near  the  sensation 
of  being  thrust  suddenly  into  life  from  the  be- 
yond and  the  dead  as  mortal  man  may  expect  to 
know.  It  is  a  surprising  and  providential  waken- 
ing into  a  world  which  long  ago  went  dark.  That 
world  is  strangely  loud,  bright,  and  alive.  Plainly 
it  did  not  stop  when,  somehow,  it  vanished  once 
upon  a  time.  There  its  vivid  circulation  moves, 
and  the  buses  are  so  usual,  the  people  so  brisk 
and  intent  on  their  own  concerns,  the  signs  so 
startlingly  familiar,  that  the  man  who  is  home 
again  begins  to  doubt  that  he  has  been  absent,  that 
he  has  been  dead.  But  his  uniform  must  surely 
mean  something,  and  its  stains  something  more ! 

And  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  it,  as  you 
stand  there  a  trifle  dizzy  in  London  once  more. 
You  really  have  come  back  from  another  world; 
and  you  have  the  curious  idea  that  you  may  be 
invisible  in  this  old  world.  In  a  sense  you  know 

[157] 


Old  Junk 

you  are  unseen.  These  people  will  never  know 
what  you  know.  Ther  they  gossip  in  the  hall, 
and  leisurely  survey  the  bookstall,  and  they  would 
never  guess  it,  but  you  have  just  returned  from 
hell.  What  could  they  say  if  you  told  them? 
They  would  be  embarrassed,  polite,  forbearing, 
kindly,  and  smiling,  and  they  would  mention  the 
matter  afterwards  as  a  queer  adventure  with  a 
poor  devil  who  was  evidently  a  little  over- 
wrought; shell  shock,  of  course.  Beastly  thing, 
shell  shock.  Seems  to  affect  the  nerves. 

They  would  not  understand.  They  will  never 
understand.  What  is  the  use  of  standing  in 
veritable  daylight,  and  telling  the  living,  who  have 
never  been  dead,  of  the  other  place? 

I  know  now  how  Rip  Van  Winkle  felt  about  it. 
But  his  was  a  minor  trouble.  All  he  lost  was 
some  years.  He  had  not  changed,  except  that  his 
beard  was  longer.  But  the  man  who  comes  back 
from  the  line  has  lost  more  than  years.  He  has 
lost  his  original  self.  People  failed  to  recognize 
Rip  because  they  did  not  know  his  beard.  Our 
friends  do  recognize  us  when  they  greet  us  on  our 
return  from  the  front,  but  they  do  not  know  us 
because  we  are  not  the  men  they  remember. 
They  are  the  same  as  ever;  but  when  they  address 
us,  they  talk  to  a  mind  which  is  not  there,  though 

[158] 


On  Leave 

the  eyes  betray  nothing  of  the  difference.  They 
talk  to  those  who  have  come  back  to  life  to  see 
them  again,  but  who  cannot  tell  them  what  has 
happened,  and  dare  not  try. 

Between  that  old  self  and  the  man  they  see, 
there  is  an  abyss  of  dread.  He  has  passed 
through  it.  To  them  the  war  is  official  com- 
muniques, the  amplifying  dispatches  of  war  cor- 
respondents, the  silence  of  absent  friends  in 
danger,  the  shock  of  a  telegram,  and  rather  in- 
teresting food-rationing.  They  think  it  is  the 
same  war  which  the  leave-man  knows.  He  will 
tell  them  all  about  it,  and  they  will  learn  the  truth 
at  last. 

All  about  it!  If  an  apparition  of  the  battle- 
line  in  eruption  were  to  form  over  London,  over 
Paris,  over  Berlin,  a  sinister  mirage,  near,  unfad- 
ing, and  admonitory,  with  spectral  figures  moving 
in  its  reflected  fires  and  its  gloom,  and  the  echoes 
of  their  cries  were  heard,  and  murmurs  of  con- 
vulsive shocks,  and  the  wind  over  the  roofs 
brought  ghostly  and  abominable  smells  into  our 
streets;  and  if  that  were  to  haunt  us  by  day  and 
night,  a  phantom  from  which  there  was  no  escape, 
to  remain  till  the  sins  of  Europe  were  expiated, 
we  should  soon  forget  politics  and  arguments,  and 
be  in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  positive  no  longer,  but 

E»S9] 


Old  Junk 

down  on  our  knees  before  Heaven  in  awe  at  this 
revelation  of  social  guilt,  asking  simply  what  we 
must  do  to  be  saved. 

Your  revival  at  home,  when  on  leave,  is  full 
of  wonderful  commonplaces,  especially  now,  with 
summer  ripening.  The  yellow-hammer  is  heard 
on  the  telegraph  wire,  and  the  voices  of  children 
in  the  wood,  and  the  dust  of  white  English  country 
roads  is  smelled  at  evening.  All  that  is  a  delight 
which  is  miraculous  in  its  intensity.  But  it  is  very 
lonesome  and  far.  It  i's  curious  to  feel  that  you 
are  really  there,  delighting  in  the  vividness  of  this 
recollection  of  the  past,  and  yet  balked  by  the 
knowledge  that  you  are,  nevertheless,  outside  this 
world  of  home,  though  it  looks  and  smells  and 
sounds  so  close;  and  that  you  may  never  enter  it 
again.  It  is  like  the  landscape  in  a  mirror,  the 
luminous  projection  of  what  is  behind  you.  But 
you  are  not  there.  It  is  recognized,  but  viewed 
now  apart  and  aloof,  a  chance  glimpse  at  the 
secure  and  enduring  place  from  which  you  came, 
vouchsafed  to  one  who  must  soon  return  to  the 
secret  darkness  in  his  mind. 

The  home  folk  do  not  know  this,  and  may  not 

be  told  —  I  mean  they  may  not  be  told  why  it  is 

so.     The  youngster  who  is  home  on  leave,  though 

he  may  not  have  reasoned  it  out,  knows  that  what 

[160] 


On  Leave 

he  wants  to  say,  often  prompted  by  indignation, 
cannot  be  said.  He  feels  intuitively  that  this  is 
beyond  his  power  to  express.  Besides,  if  he  were 
to  begin,  where  would  he  end?  He  cannot  trust 
himself.  What  would  happen  if  he  uncovered,  in 
a  sunny  and  innocent  breakfast-room,  the  horror 
he  knows?  If  he  spoke  out?  His  people  would 
not  understand  him.  They  would  think  he  was 
mad.  They  would  be  sorry,  dammit.  Sorry  for 
him !  Why,  he  is  not  sorry  for  himself.  He  can 
stand  it  now  he  knows  what  it  is  like.  He  can 
stand  it  —  if  they  can.  And  he  realizes  they  can 
stand  it,  and  are  merely  anxious  about  his  welfare, 
the  welfare  which  does  not  trouble  him  in  the 
least,  for  he  has  looked  into  the  depth  of  evil,  and 
for  him  the  earth  has  changed;  and  he  rather  de- 
spises it.  He  has  seen  all  he  wants  to  see  of  it. 
Let  it  go,  dammit.  If  they  don't  mind  the 
change,  and  don't  kick,  why  should  he  ?  What  a 
hell  of  a  world  to  be  born  into;  and  once  it  did 
look  so  jolly  good,  too !  He  is  shy,  cheery,  but 
inexorably  silent  on  what  he  knows.  Some  old 
fool  said  to  him  once,  "  It  must  be  pretty  bad  out 
there?"  Pretty  bad  I  What  a  lark! 

But  for  his  senior,  who  also  knows,  though  the 
feeling  is  the  same,  the  nature  of  the  combative 
adult  male  is  less  shy,  and  not  merely  negatively 
[161] 


Old  Junk 

contemptuous,  but  aggressive.  It  is  difficult  for 
him  to  endure  hearing  the  home  folk  speak  with 
the  confidence  of  special  revelation  of  the  war 
they  have  not  seen,  when  he,  who  has  been  in  it, 
has  contradictory  minds  about  it.  They  are  so 
assured  that  they  think  there  can  be  no  other 
view;  and  they  bear  out  their  mathematical  argu- 
ments with  maps  and  figures.  It  might  be  a 
chess  tournament.  He  feels  at  last  his  anger  be- 
ginning to  smoulder.  He  feels  a  bleak  and  im- 
palpable alienation  from  those  who  are  all  the 
world  to  him.  He  understands  at  last  that  they 
also  are  in  the  mirror,  projected  from  his  world 
that  was,  and  that  now  he  cannot  come  near  them. 
Yet  though  he  knows  it,  they  do  not.  The  great- 
est evil  of  war  —  this  is  what  staggers  you  when 
you  come  home,  feeling  you  know  the  worst 
of  it  —  is  the  unconscious  indifference  to  war's 
obscene  blasphemy  against  life  of  the  men  and 
women  who  have  the  assurance  that  they  will 
never  be  called  on  to  experience  it.  Out  there, 
comrades  in  a  common  and  unlightened  affliction 
shake  a  fist  humorously  at  the  disregarding  stars, 
and  mock  them.  Let  the  Fates  do  their  worst. 
The  sooner  it  is  over,  the  better;  and,  while  wait- 
ing, they  will  take  it  out  of  Old  Jerry.  He  is  the 
only  one  out  of  whom  they  can  take  it.  They 

[.62] 


On  Leave 

are  to  throw  away  their  world  and  die,  so  they 
must  take  it  out  of  somebody.  Therefore  Jerry 
"  gets  it  in  the  neck."  Men  under  the  irrefrag- 
able compulsion  of  a  common  spell,  who  are  se- 
lected for  sacrifice  in  the  fervour  of  a  general  ob- 
session, but  who  are  cooly  awake  to  the  unreason 
which  locks  the  minds  of  their  fellows,  will  burst 
into  fury  at  the  bond  they  feel.  The  obvious 
obstruction  is  the  obstinate  "  blighter "  with  a 
machine-gun  in  front  of  them.  At  least,  they  are 
free  to  "  strafe  "  him. 

But  what  is  the  matter  with  London?  The  men 
on  leave,  when  they  meet  each  other,  always  ask 
that  question  without  hope,  in  the  seclusion  of 
their  confidence  and  special  knowledge.  They 
feel  perversely  they  would  sooner  be  amid  the 
hated  filth  and  smells  of  the  battle-ground  than  at 
home.  Out  there,  though  possibly  mischance 
may  suddenly  extinguish  the  day  for  them,  they 
will  be  with  those  who  understand,  with  com- 
rades who  rarely  discuss  the  war  except  obliquely 
and  with  quiet  and  bitter  jesting.  Seeing  the 
world  has  gone  wrong,  how  much  better  and 
easier  it  is  to  take  the  likelihood  of  extinction 
with  men  who  have  the  same  mental  dis- 
gust as  your  own,  and  can  endure  it  till  they 
die,  but  who,  while  they  live  in  the  same 


Old  Junk 

torment  with  you,  have  the  unspoken  but 
certain  conviction  that  Europe  is  a  decadent 
old  beast  eating  her  young  with  insatiable 
appetite,  than  to  sit  in  sunny  breakfast-rooms  with 
the  newspaper  maps  and  positive  arguments  of 
the  unsaved ! 

Autumn  1917. 


[164] 


XVI.     The  Dunes 

THE  dunes  are  in  another  world.  They 
are  two  miles  across  the  uncertain  and 
hazardous  tide  races  of  the  estuary. 
The  folk  of  the  village  never  go  over.  The 
dunes  are  nothing.  They  are  the  horizon.  They 
are  only  seen  in  idleness,  or  when  the  weather  is 
scanned,  or  an  incoming  ship  is  marked.  The 
dunes  are  but  a  pallid  phantom  of  land  so  deli- 
cately golden  that  it  is  surprising  to  find  it  con- 
stant. The  faint  glow  of  that  dilated  shore, 
quavering  just  above  the  sea,  the  sea  intensely 
blue  and  positive,  might  wreathe  and  vanish  at 
any  moment  in  the  pour  of  wind  from  the  At- 
lantic, whose  endless  strength  easily  bears  in  and 
over  us  vast  involuted  continents  of  white  cloud. 
The  dunes  tremble  in  the  broad  flood  of  wind, 
light,  and  sea,  diaphanous  and  fading,  always  on 
the  limit  of  vision,  the  point  of  disappearing,  but 
are  established.  They  are  soundless,  immaterial, 
and  far,  like  a  pleasing  and  personal  illusion,  a 


Old  Junk 

luminous  dream  of  lasting  tranquillity  in  a  better 
but  an  unapproachable  place,  and  the  thought  of 
crossing  to  them  never  suggests  anything  so  ob- 
vious as  a  boat.  They  look  like  no  coast  that 
could  be  reached. 

It  was  a  perverse  tide  on  a  windless  day  which 
drifted  me  over.  The  green  mounds  of  water 
were  flawless,  with  shadows  of  mysteries  in  their 
clear  dezps.  The  boat  and  the  tide  were  murmur- 
ing to  each  other  secretly.  The  boat's  thwarts 
were  hot  and  dry  in  the  sun.  The  serene  immen- 
sity of  the  sky,  the  warmth  and  dryness  of  the 
boat's  timbers,  the  deep  and  translucent  waters, 
and  the  coast  so  low  and  indistinct  that  the  silent 
flashing  of  the  combers  there  might  have  been  on 
nothing  substantial,  were  all  timeless,  and  could 
have  been  but  a  thought  and  a  desire;  they  were 
like  a  memorable  morning  in  a  Floridan  cay 
miraculously  returned.  The  boat  did  not  move; 
the  shore  approached,  revealed  itself.  It  was 
something  granted  on  a  lucky  day.  This  country 
would  not  be  on  the  map. 

I  landed  on  a  broad  margin  of  sand  which  the 
tide  had  just  left.  It  was  filmed  with  water. 
It  was  a  mirror  in  which  the  sky  was  inverted. 
When  a  breath  of  air  passed  over  that  polished 
surface  it  was  as  though  the  earth  were  a  shining 
[166] 


The  Dunes 

bubble  which  then  nearly  burst.  To  dare  that 
foothold  might  precipitate  the  intruder  on  ancient 
magic  to  cloudland  floating  miles  beneath  the  feet. 
But  I  had  had  the  propriety  to  go  barefooted,  and 
had  lightened  my  mind  before  beginning  the  voy- 
age. Here  I  felt  I  was  breaking  into  what 
was  still  only  the  first  day,  for  man  had  never 
measured  this  place  with  his  countless  interrup- 
tions of  darkness.  I  don't  know  whether  that 
mirror  had  ever  been  darkened  till  I  put  my  foot 
in  it.  After  the  news  I  had  heard  on  the  quay 
that  morning  before  starting  out,  news  just  ar- 
rived from  London,  the  dunes  were  an  unexpected 
assurance  that  the  earth  has  an  integrity  and  pur- 
ity of  its  own,  a  quality  which  even  man  cannot 
irreparably  soil;  that  it  maintains  a  pristine  health 
and  bloom  invulnerable  to  the  best  our  heroic  and 
intelligent  activities  can  accomplish,  and  could 
easily  survive  our  extinction,  and  even  forget  it 
once  supported  us. 

I  found  an  empty  bottle  among  the  dry  litter 
and  drift  above  the  tide-mark,  sole  relic,  as  far 
as  could  be  seen  there,  of  man.  No  message  was 
in  the  bottle.  The  black  bottle  itself  was  for- 
lornly the  message,  but  it  lay  there  unregarded  by 
the  bright  immemorial  genius  of  that  coast.  Yet 
it  settled  one  doubt.  This  was  not  a  land  which 

[-67] 


Old  Junk 

had  never  known  man.  It  had  merely  forgotten 
it  had  known  him.  He  had  been  there,  but 
whatever  difference  he  had  made  was  of  the  same 
significance  now  as  the  dry  bladder-wrack,  the 
mummied  gull  near  by,  and  the  bleached  shells. 
The  next  tide  probably  would  hide  the  memento 
for  ever.  At  the  time  this  did  not  seem  an  un- 
happy thought,  though  the  relic  had  been  our 
last  witness,  so  enduring  was  the  tenuous  bright- 
ness of  the  place,  the  shrine  of  our  particular 
star,  the  visible  aura  of  earth.  We  rarely 
see  it.  It  is  something  to  be  reminded  it  is  not 
lost;  that  we  cannot,  whatever  else  we  can  do, 
put  out  a  celestial  light. 

Above  the  steep  beach  a  dry  flat  opened  out, 
reached  only  by  gales  and  the  highest  of  the  spring 
tides,  a  wilderness  of  fine  sand,  hot  and  deep,  its 
surface  studded  with  the  opaque  blue  of  round 
pebbles  and  mussel  shells.  It  looked  too  arid  to 
support  life,  but  sea-rocket  with  fleshy  emerald 
stems  and  lilac  flowers  was  scattered  about. 
Nothing  moved  in  the  waste  but  an  impulsive 
small  butterfly,  blue  as  a  fragment  of  sky.  The 
silence  of  the  desert  was  that  of  a  dream, 
but  when  listening  to  the  quiet,  a  murmur  which 
had  been  below  hearing  was  imagined.  The 
dunes  were  quivering  with  the  intensity  of  some 

[168] 


The  Dunes 

latent  energy,  and  it  might  have  been  that  one 
heard,  or  else  it  was  the  remembrance  held  by 
that  strand  of  a  storm  which  had  passed,  or  it 
might  have  been  the  ardent  shafts  of  the  sun.  At 
the  landward  end  of  the  waste,  by  the  foot  of  the 
dunes,  was  an  old  beam  of  a  ship,  harsh  with  bar- 
nacles, its  bolt-holes  stopped  with  dust.  A  spin- 
ous  shrub  grew  to  one  side  of  it.  A  solitary 
wasp,  a  slender  creature  in  black  and  gold,  quick 
and  emotional,  had  made  a  cabin  of  one  of  the 
holes  in  the  timber.  For  some  reason  that  frag- 
ment of  a  barque  was  more  eloquent  of  travel, 
and  the  work  of  seamen  gone,  than  any  of  the 
craft  moored  at  the  quay  I  left  that  morning.  I 
smoked  a  pipe  on  that  timber  —  for  all  I  knew, 
not  for  the  first  time  —  and  did  not  feel  at  all 
lonely,  nor  that  voyages  for  the  discovery  of  fairer 
times  were  finished. 

Now  the  dunes  were  close  they  appeared  sur- 
prisingly high,  and  were  formed,  not  like  hills,  but 
like  the  high  Alps.  They  had  the  peaks  and  de- 
clivities of  mountains.  Their  colour  was  of  old 
ivory,  and  the  long  marram  grass  which  grew  on 
them  sparsely  was  as  fine  as  green  hair.  The 
hollowed  slope  before  me  was  so  pale,  spacious, 
and  immaculate  that  there  was  an  instinctive  hes- 
itation about  taking  it.  A  dark  ghost  began 

[169] 


Old  Junk 

slowly  to  traverse  it  with  outspread  arms,  a  shade 
so  distinct  on  that  virgin  surface  that  not  till  the 
gull,  whose  shadow  it  was,  had  gone  inland,  fol- 
lowing its  shadow  over  the  high  yellow  ridge, 
did  I  know  that  I  had  not  been  looking  at  the 
personality.  But  the  surface  had  been  darkened, 
and  I  could  overcome  my  hesitation. 

From  the  ridge,  the  country  of  the  dunes  opened 
inland  with  the  enlarged  likeness  of  a  lunar  land- 
scape surveyed  in  a  telescope.  It  merely  ap- 
peared to  be  near.  The  sand-hills,  with  their 
acute  outlines,  and  their  shadows  flung  rigidly 
from  their  peaks  across  the  pallor  of  their  slopes, 
were  the  apparition  of  inviolable  seclusion.  They 
could  have  been  waiting  upon  an  event  secret  from 
our  knowledge,  larger  than  the  measure  of  our 
experience;  so  they  had  still  the  aspect  of  a  strange 
world,  not  only  infinitely  remote,  but  superior  with 
a  greater  destiny.  They  were  old,  greatly  older 
than  the  ancient  village  across  the  water.  Ships 
left  the  village  and  went  by  them  to  sea  gay  with 
the  bunting  of  a  first  voyage,  with  a  fair  wind, 
and  on  a  fine  morning;  and  when  such  a  ship  came 
back  long  after  as  an  old  plank  bearded  with  sea 
moss,  to  the  dunes  under  which  it  stranded  the 
day  was  still  the  same,  vestal  and  innocent;  for 
they  were  on  a  voyage  of  greater  length  and  im- 
[170] 


The  Dunes 

port.  They  had  buried  many  ships;  but,  as  time 
moved  to  them,  all  on  the  same  day. 

Only  when  resting  on  a  knoll  of  one  of  the 
slopes,  where  the  shadows  of  a  tuft  of  marram 
grass  above  my  head  lay  as  thin  black  wire  on 
the  sand,  were  the  dunes  caught  in  part  of  their 
secret.  There  was  no  sound.  I  heard  the  outer 
world  from  which  I  had  come  only  as  the  whistle 
of  a  curlew.  It  was  far  away  now.  To  this 
place,  the  news  I  had  heard  on  the  quay  that  morn- 
ing would  have  sounded  the  same  as  Waterloo, 
which  was  yesterday,  or  the  Armada,  which 
was  the  same  day  —  wasn't  it?  —  or  the  day 
before,  or  as  the  whistle  of  a  curlew.  Here 
we  were  outside  time.  Then  I  thought  I  heard 
a  faint  whisper,  but  when  I  looked  round  noth- 
ing had  altered.  The  shadows  of  the  grass 
formed  a  fixed  metallic  design  on  the  sand.  But 
I  heard  the  whisper  again,  and  with  a  side  glance 
caught  the  dune  stealthily  on  the  move. 

It  was  alive.  When  you  were  not  attentive, 
some  of  its  grains  would  start  furtively,  pour  in 
increasing  mobility  fanwise,  and  rest  instantly 
when  looked  at.  This  hill  was  fluid,  and  cir- 
culated. It  preserved  an  outline  that  was  fixed 
through  the  years,  a  known,  named,  and  charted 
locality,  only  to  those  to  whom  one  map  would 

[171] 


Old  Junk 

serve  a  lifetime.  But  it  was  really  unknown.  It 
was  on  its  way.  Like  the  ships  that  were  passing, 
it  also  was  passing.  It  was  only  taking  its  own 
time. 

Secluded  within  the  inner  ranges  were  little  val- 
leys, where,  for  a  while,  the  dunes  had  ceased  to 
travel,  and  were  at  leisure.  I  got  into  a  hollow 
which  had  a  floor  of  hoary  lichen,  with  bronze 
hummocks  of  moss.  In  this  moment  of  pause  it 
had  assumed  a  look  of  what  we  call  antiquity. 
The  valley  was  not  abundant  with  vegetation,  but 
enamelled  and  jewelled.  A  more  concentrated, 
hectic,  and  volatile  essence  sent  up  stalks,  blades, 
and  sprays,  with  that  direction  and  restraint  which 
perfection  needs.  More  than  in  a  likelier  and 
fecund  spot,  in  this  valley  the  ichor  showed  the 
ardour  and  flush  of  its  early  vitality.  Even  now 
it  could  shape  like  this,  and  give  these  dyes! 
Chosen  by  an  earth  astringent  and  tonic,  the  forms 
were  few  and  personal.  Here  you  should  see  to 
what  influences  our  planet  is  still  subject.  The 
shapes  in  that  valley  were  more  than  coloured; 
they  were  rare  jets  of  light,  emerald,  orange,  blue, 
and  scarlet.  Life  burned  with  an  original  force, 
a  steady  virtue.  What  is  "good  news"?  It 
depends  on  the  sort  of  evidence  for  which  we  look. 

Just  showing  in  the  drift  on  the  seaward  side 
[172] 


The  Dunes 

of  the  valley  were  some  worked  stones  and  a  little 
brickwork.  When  the  sandhill  paused,  it  had  al- 
most covered  a  building  where  man  once  wor- 
shipped. I  could  find  nobody  afterwards  who  re- 
membered the  church,  or  had  even  heard  of  it. 
Yet  the  doom  of  this  temple,  prolonged  in  its  ap- 
proach but  inevitable,  to  those  to  whom  the  altar 
once  had  seemed  as  indestructible  as  hope,  must  on 
a  day  have  struck  the  men  who  saw  at  last  their 
temple's  end  was  near  as  a  hint,  vague  but  glacial, 
of  the  transience  of  all  their  affairs. 

But  what  were  their  affairs?  We  should  have 
to  know  them  before  we  could  regret  the  dry  sand 
which  buried  them.  The  valley  looked  very  well 
as  it  was.  It  showed  no  sign  of  failure.  Over 
one  of  the  stones  of  the  forgotten  altar  was  a 
casual  weed  which  stood  like  a  sign  of  success  and 
continuance.  It  was  as  indecipherable  as  the 
stone,  but  the  blue  of  its  flowers,  still  and  deep  as 
rapture,  surprising  and  satisfying  as  an  unexpected 
revelation  of  good,  would  have  been  better  worth 
reading  for  a  knowledge  of  the  heart  from  which 
could  be  drawn  the  temper  and  intensity  of  that 
faith. 

August  1917. 

[173] 


XVII.     Binding  a  Spell 

YOU  may  never  have  addressed  a  meeting 
of  the  public,  but  you  have  long  cher- 
ished a  vision  of  a  figure   (well  known 
to  your  private  mirror)   standing  where  it  over- 
looks an  intent  and  silent  multitude  to  which  it 
communicates  with   apt   and   fluent  words   those 
things  not  seen  by  mortal  eyes,  the  dream  of  a 
world  not  ours.  .  .  .  You  know  what  I  mean. 
(Loud  and  prolonged  applause.) 

"  I  should  be  glad,"  wrote  one  who  is  still  un- 
ashamed to  call  himself  my  friend,  "  if  you  could 
run  down  here  one  evening  and  address  a  meet- 
ing on  your  experiences.  Just  conversationally, 
you  know." 

A  casual  sort  of  letter.  Designedly  so.  But 
I  could  see  through  it.  It  was  an  invitation  which 
did  not  wish  to  scare  me  from  accepting  it.  I 
smiled  with  serene  amusement  at  its  concluding 
sentence.  Conversationally!  Why,  that  would 
be  merely  talking;  tongue-work;  keeping  on  and 
on  after  one  usually,  if  merciful  to  a  freind,  lets 

[174] 


Binding  a  Spell 

him  off.  I  felt  instantly  that  for  once  it  might 
be  even  more  pleasant  to  entertain  an  audience 
than  to  be  one  of  the  crowd  and  bored.  And  it 
happened  that  my  experiences  really  did  give  me 
something  to  say,  and  were  exactly  what  an  audi- 
ence, in  war-time,  might  be  glad  to  hear.  I  there- 
fore wrote  a  brief  note  of  acceptance,  as  one  to 
whom  this  sort  of  thing  comes  ten  times  a  day; 
and  thought  no  more  about  it. 

No  more,  that  is  to  say,  till  I  saw  the  local 
paper  announced  me  as  a  coming  event,  a  treat  in 
store.  I  was  on  the  list.  There  were  those  that 
evening  who,  instead  of  going  to  a  theatre,  a  con- 
cert, or  to  see  Vesta  Tilley,  would  come  to  hear 
me.  I  felt  then  the  first  cold  underdraught  of 
doubt,  the  chilling  intimation  from  the  bleak  un- 
known, where  it  is  your  own  affair  entirely  whether 
you  flourish  or  perish.  What  a  draught!  I 
got  up,  shut  the  door,  and  looked  at  the  day  of 
the  month. 

That  was  all  right;  yet  another  fortnight! 

But  what  weakness  was  this?  Anybody,  could 
do  it,  if  they  knew  as  much  of  my  subject  as  did  I. 
Many  men  would  do  it,  without  a  tremor,  with- 
out shame,  if  they  knew  next  to  nothing  about  it. 
Look  at  old  Brown,  for  example,  whose  only  emo- 
tions are  evoked  by  being  late  for  dinner,  the  price 

[175] 


Old  Junk 

of  building  materials,  the  scandalous  incapacity  of 
workmen,  and  the  restriction  of  the  liberty  of  the 
subject  by  trade  unions!  He  will  sit,  everybody 
knows,  while  wearing  plaid  trousers  and  side- 
whiskers,  on  the  right  hand  of  a  peer,  in  full  view 
of  thousands,  at  a  political  meeting,  untroubled, 
bland,  conscious  of  his  worth,  and  will  rise  at  the 
word,  thumbs  carelessly  thrust  into  his  waistcoat 
pockets,  begin  with  a  jest  (the  same  one),  and 
for  an  hour  make  aspirates  as  uncommon  as  are 
bathrooms  in  his  many  houses. 

He  has  nothing  to  say,  and  could  not  say  it  if 
he  had;  but  he  can  speak  in  public.  You  will  ob- 
serve the  inference  is  obvious.  One  who  is  really 
capable  of  constructive  thought  (like  you  and 
me) ;  who  has  a  wide  range  of  words  to  choose 
from  even  when  running;  who  is  touched,  by 
events,  to  admiration,  to  indignation,  to  alarm,  to 
—  to  all  that  sort  of  thing,  he  could  .  .  .  the 
plastic  audience  would  be  in  his  skilful  hands, 
there  is  no  doubt.  (Hear,  hear!) 

Time  passed.  As  Mr.  A.  Ward  once  pointed 
out,  it  is  a  way  time  has.  The  night  came,  as  at 
last  I  began  to  fear  it  would.  My  brief  notes 
were  in  my  pocket,  for  I  had  resolutely  put  from 
me  the  dishonourable  and  barren  safety  of  a  writ- 
ten lecture.  In  the  train  —  how  cold  was  the 

[176] 


Binding  a  Spell 

night  —  I  wished  I  had  gone  more  fully  into  the 
matter.  Slightly  shivering,  I  tried  to  recall  the 
dry  humour  of  those  carefully  prepared  opening 
sentences  which  shortly  would  prove  to  my  audi- 
ence that  I  had  their  measure,  and  was  at  ease; 
would  prove  that  my  elevation  on  the  platform 
was  not  merely  through  four  feet  of  deal  plank- 
ing, but  was  a  real  overlooking.  But  those  deli- 
cate sentences  had  broken  somehow.  They  were 
shards,  and  not  a  glitter  of  humour  was  sticking  to 
the  fragments. 

I  felt  I  would  rather  again  approach  one  of 
those  towns  in  France,  where  it  was  likely  you 
would  run  into  the  Uhlans,  than  go  to  that  lecture 
hall.  No  doubt,  too,  my  friend  had  explained  to 
them  what  a  clever  fellow  I  was,  in  order  to  get 
some  reflected  glory  out  of  it.  Then  it  would 
serve  him  right;  there  would  be  two  of  us. 

The  hall  was  nearly  full.  What  surprises  one 
is  to  find  so  many  ladies  present.  A  most  dis- 
quieting fact,  entirely  unforeseen.  They  sit  in  the 
front  rows  and  wait,  evidently  in  a  tranquil,  alert, 
and  mirthful  mind,  for  you  to  begin.  I  could 
hear  their  leisurely  converse  and  occasional  sub- 
dued laughter  (about  what?)  even  where,  in  a 
sort  of  frozen,  lucid  calm,  indifferent  to  my  fate, 
the  mood  of  all  Englishmen  in  moments  of  ex- 

[177] 


Old  Junk 

treme  peril,  I  was  handing  my  'hat  and  coat  to  my 
friend  in  a  room  behind  the  platform.  All  those 
people  out  there  were  waiting  for  me. 

When  we  got  on  the  platform  the  chairman  told 
them  something  about  me,  I  don't  know  what,  but 
when  I  looked  up  it  was  to  find,  like  the  soul  in 
torment,  that  a  multitude  of  bodiless  eyes  had  fixed 
me  —  eyes  intent,  curious,  passionless. 

"  I  call  upon  —  "  said  the  chairman. 

I  stood  up.  The  sound  of  my  voice  uplifted  in 
that  silence  was  the  most  startling  sound  I  have 
ever  heard.  Shortly  after  that  there  came  the 
paralysing  discovery  that  it  is  a  gift  to  be  able 
to  think  while  hundreds  wait  patiently  to  see  what 
the  thought  is  like  when  it  comes.  This  made  my 
brow  hot.  There  was  a  boy  in  an  Eton  suit,  sit- 
ting in  front  with  his  legs  wide  apart,  who  was 
grinning  at  me  through  his  spectacles.  How  he 
got  there  I  don't  know.  I  think  he  was  the  gift 
of  the  gods.  His  smile  so  annoyed  me  that  I 
forgot  myself,  which  saved  me.  I  just  talked  to 
that  boy. 

Once  there  was  loud  laughter.  Why?  It  is 
inexplicable.  I  talked  for  about  an  hour.  About 
what?  Heaven  knows.  The  chairman  kindly 
let  me  out  through  a  side  entrance. 

[178] 


XVIII.     A  Division  on  the 
March 

WE  passed  a  division  on  the  march  the 
other  day.     Though  the  British  oc- 
cupy this  country,  it  is  not  often  one 
sees  them  as  a  multitude.     When  in  the  trenches, 
you  are  concerned  with  but  a  handful  of  your  fel- 
lows.    But  just  then  an  interminable  river  of  steel 
helmets  poured  along  in  regular  waves. 

It  is  something  to  be  able  to  say  you  have  seen 
a  British  army  moving  down  the  straight  leagues 
of  a  French  road  through  its  guarding  avenue  of 
trees.  My  own  brother  may  have  been  in  that 
host.  .  .  .  Yet  I  never  thought  of  him.  A  tor- 
rent of  sounds  swamped  and  submerged  my 
thoughts  —  the  clangour  of  chains,  the  rumbling 
of  wheels,  the  deep  growling  of  guns;  and  that 
most  ominous  and  subduing  sound  in  war,  the 
ceaseless  rhythmic  tramp  of  armed  men  marching 
without  music  or  song,  men  who,  except  the  men- 
ace of  their  measured  progress,  that  intimation  of 
destiny  and  fate  irresistible,  are  but  a  multitude 

[179] 


Old  Junk 

of  expressionless  masks  that  glance  at  you,  and 
pass. 

These  men  are  all  dressed  alike;  they  are  a 
tide  of  men.  They  all  look  alike.  Their  mouths 
are  set.  They  move  together  with  the  common, 
irresistible,  uncritical  urge  of  migratory  animals. 
Their  eyes  fix  you  in  a  single  ceaseless  interroga- 
tion. About  what? 

There  is  no  knowing.  Don't  ask  me  what  the 
men  are  thinking  in  Flanders;  I  don't  know,  and 
I  have  been  with  them  since  the  beginning.  And 
I  don't  think  any  one  else  does. 

But  once,  as  this  division  was  passing,  one  of 
those  little  go-carts  on  perambulator  wheels  in 
which  the  men,  holding  drag-ropes,  transport  their 
own  personal  belongings,  upset  a  few  books. 
You  would  have  recognized  their  popular  covers; 
and  the  anxiety,  instantly  shown,  to  recover  those 
treasures,  broke  up  the  formation  there  for  a'.few 
moments  into  something  human  and  understand- 
able. The  wind  took  a  few  escaped  leaves  and 
blew  them  to  me.  The  Pickwick  Papers! 

It  was  as  though  the  inscrutable  eye  of  the  army 
had  tipped  me  a  wink. 

I  got  the  hint  that  I  was,  in  the  right  sense,  on 
the  same  road  as  these  men.  My  brother  was 
certainly  there.  For  sometimes,  you  know,  one 

[i  80] 


A  Division  on  the  March 

has  a  bleak  sense  of  doubt  about  that,  a  feeling 
of  extreme  isolation  and  polar  loneliness.  You 
wonder,  at  times,  mixed  up  here  in  the  mysterious 
complexities  of  that  elemental  impulse  which  is 
visible  as  ceaseless  clouds  of  fire  on  the  Somme, 
whether  you  are  the  last  man,  witnessing  in  help- 
less and  mute  horror  the  motiveless  upheaval  of 
earth  in  final  ruin. 

So  that,  even  as  I  write  this,  and  glance,  safe 
for  tonight,  at  the  strangeness  of  this  French 
house,  I  see  everything  about  me  with  astonish- 
ment, and  feel  I  may  wake  at  any  moment  to  the 
familiar  things  of  that  home  in  which  I  fell  asleep 
to  dream  of  calamity. 

Moving  about  this  dubious  and  unauthentic 
scene  of  war,  an  atom  of  a  fortuitous  host,  each 
one  of  the  host  glancing  at  me  with  inscrutable 
eyes  which  seem  to  show  in  passing  —  if  they 
show  anything  at  all  —  a  faint  hint  of  reproach, 
the  interruption  of  war  by  the  page  of  a  familiar 
book,  and  the  sudden  anxious  effort  by  one  of  the 
uniformed  phantoms  to  recover  words  which  you 
remember  well  enough  were  once  worth  hearing, 
was  like  momentary  recovery.  An  unexpected 
revelation.  For  a  moment  I  saw  the  same  old 
enduring  earth  under  us.  All  was  well. 

I  often  doubt  here  the  existence  of  a  man  who 

[181] 


Old  Junk 

is  talking  to  me.  He  seems  altogether  incredible. 
He  might  be  talking  across  the  Styx;  and  I  am  not 
sure  at  the  moment  on  which  side  of  that  river 
I  stand.  Is  he  on  the  right  side  or  am  I  ?  Which 
of  us  has  got  the  place  where  a  daily  sun  still 
rises  ?  Yes,  it  is  the  living  men  here  who  are  the 
uncanny  spectres. 

I  have  come  in  a  lonely  spot  upon  a  little  cross 
by  the  wayside,  and  have  been  stopped  by  a  fa- 
miliar name  on  it.  Dead?  No.  There,  right 
enough,  is  my  veritable  friend,  as  I  knew  and  ad- 
mired him.  He  cannot  be  dead.  But  those  men 
in  muddy  clothes  who  sometimes  consort  with 
me  round  the  burning  logs  on  the  hearth  of  an 
old  chateau  at  night,  I  look  across  the  floor  at 
them  as  across  countless  ages,  and  listen  to  their 
voices  till  they  sound  unintelligibly  from  a  remote 
and  alien  past.  I  do  not  know  what  they  say  to 
me.  I  am  encompassed  by  dark  and  insoluble 
magic,  and  have  forgotten  the  Open  Sesame, 
though  I  try  hard  to  remember  it;  for  these  pres- 
ent circumstances  and  the  beings  who  move  in 
them  are  of  a  world  unreal  and  unreasonable. 

I  get  up  from  the  talk  of  war  by  that  fireside 
of  an  old  chateau  built  on  a  still  more  ancient  field 
where  English  archers  fought  a  famous  bottle  six 
hundred  years  ago.  A  candle  stands  on  a  bracket 

[182] 


A  Division  on  the  March 

beneath  a  portrait  of  a  lady.  The  lady  is  in  the 
dress  of  the  days  of  the  French  Revolution.  She 
is  young  and  vivid,  and  looks  down  at  me  under 
lowered  eyelids  in  amused  and  enticing  scrutiny. 
Her  little  mouth  has  the  faintest  trace  of  a  con- 
templative smile;  and  as  I  look  at  her  I  could 
swear  the  corners  of  her  mouth  twitch,  as  if  in 
the  restraint  of  complete  understanding. 

She  is  long  gone.  She  was  executed  at  Arras. 
But  I  know  her  well.  The  chateau  is  less  cold  and 
lonely  than  it  was. 

Old  stairs  wind  upwards  to  a  long  corridor,  the 
distant  ends  of  which  are  unseen.  A  few  candles 
gutter  in  the  draughts.  The  shadows  leap.  The 
place  is  so  still  that  I  can  hear  the  antique  timbers 
talking.  But  something  is  without  which  is  not 
the  noise  of  the  wind.  I  listen,  and  hear  it  again, 
the  darkness  throbbing;  the  badly  adjusted  hori- 
zon of  outer  night  thudding  on  the  earth  —  the 
incessant  guns  of  the  great  war. 

And  I  come,  for  this  night  at  least,  to  my  room. 
On  the  wall  is  a  tiny  silver  Christ  on  a  crucifix; 
and  above  that  the  portrait  of  a  child,  who  fixes 
me  in  the  surprise  of  innocence,  Questioning  and 
loveable,  the  very  look  of  warm  April  and  timid 
but  confiding  light.  I  sleep  with  the  knowledge 
of  that  over  me,  an  assurance  greater  than  that 

[183] 


Old  Junk 

of  all  the  guns  of  all  the  hosts.  It  is  a  promise. 
I  may  wake  to  the  earth  I  used  to  know  in  the 
morning. 


Winter 


[184] 


XIX.    Holly-Ho! 

IN  the  train  bound  for  the  leave  boat,  just 
before   Christmas,   the   Knight-Errant,   who 
also  was  returning  to  the  front,  re-wrote  the 
well-known  hymn  of  Phillips  Brooks  for  me,  to 
make  the  time  pass.     It  began: 

"  Oh  little  town  of  Bethlehem, 
To  thee  we  give  the  lie." 

So  you  may  guess,  though  I  shan't  tell  you,  how 
it  continued.  For  the  iron  was  in  the  soul  of  the 
Knight  and  misery  was  twisting  it.  I  cannot  pre- 
tend it  was  a  pleasure  trip.  This  was  to  be  our 
third  Christmas  in  Flanders.  Is  it  any  good  try- 
ing to  pass  on  the  emotion  common  to  men  who 
go  to  that  place  because  they  must?  No,  it  is 
not.  Yet,  throughout  the  journey  to  the  boat, 
I  was  not  astonished  at  the  loud  gaiety  of  many 
of  our  passengers.  I  have  got  used  to  it;  for  they 
were  like  that  when  they  landed  at  Boulogne  in 
August  1914;  and  they  will  be  no  different  when 

['85] 


Old  Junk 

they  come  back  for  good,  to  comfortable  observers 
who  prefer  to  be  satisfied  easily. 

There  was  a  noise  of  musical  instruments  and 
untractable  boots  on  the  floor-boards.  While 
waiting  in  the  nervous  queue  on  the  Day  of  Judg- 
ment one  of  those  fellows  will  address  a  mouth 
organ  to  the  responsive  feet  of  a  pal,  and  the 
others  will  look  on  with  intent  approval,  indiffer- 
ent to  Gabriel.  Having  watched  disaster  exper- 
iment variously  with  my  countrymen  for  three 
years,  I  begin  to  understand  why  once  the  French 
hated  us,  why  lately  they  have  learned  to  admire 
us  and  to  be  amused  by  us,  why  the  blunders  of 
our  governing  classes  don't  damage  us  vitally 
(which  seems  miraculous  unless  you  know  the  rea- 
son) ;  and,  indeed,  why  that  blessed  flag  has  braved 
a  thousand  years  the  battle  and  the  breeze. 

It  is  because  the  quality  of  our  Nobodies  (about 
whom  a  great  epic  will  get  written  when  a  poet 
is  born  good  enough  and  big  enough  to  receive  the 
inspiration),  it  is  because  any  average  Nobody 
has  a  cool  impregnability  to  the  worst  bad  luck 
can  do  which  is  supernal.  That  gives  the  affair 
something  of  the  comic.  That  is  what  makes  the 
humour  of  the  front.  And  after  the  first  silent 
pause  of  respect  and  wonder  at  one  more  story 
of  the  sort  a  journalist  knows  so  well  who  knows 

[i  86] 


Holly-Ho! 

but  a  little  of  railway  men  and  miners,  seam- 
stresses and  the  mothers  in  mean  streets,  and 
ships  and  the  sea,  one  cannot  help  chuckling. 
Again,  the  sons  of  Smith  and  Jones  and  Robin! 
The  well-born,  the  clever,  the  haughty,  and  the 
greedy,  in  their  fear,  pride,  and  wilfulness,  and 
the  perplexity  of  their  scheming,  make  a  general 
mess  of  the  world.  Forthwith  in  a  panic  they 
cry,  "  Calamity  cometh !  " 

Then  out  from  their  obscurity,  where  they 
dwelt  because  of  their  low  worth,  arise  the  No- 
bodies; because  theirs  is  the  historic  job  of  re- 
storing again  the  upset  balance  of  affairs.  They 
make  no  fuss  about  it.  Theirs  is  always  the  hard 
and  dirty  work.  They  have  always  done  it.  If 
they  don't  do  it,  it  will  not  be  done.  They  fall 
with  a  will  and  without  complaint  upon  the  wreck- 
age wilfully  made  of  generations  of  such  labour 
as  theirs,  to  get  the  world  right  again,  to  make 
it  habitable  again,  though  not  for  themselves ;  for 
them,  they  must  spend  the  rest  of  their  lives  re- 
creating order  out  of  chaos.  A  hopeless  task; 
but  they  continue  at  it  unmurmuring,  giving  their 
bodies  without  stint,  as  once  they  gave  their  labour, 
to  the  fields  and  the  sea.  And  some  day  the 
planet  will  get  back  to  its  old  place  under  the  sun; 
but  not  for  them,  not  for  them. 

[187] 


Old  Junk 

A  Nobody  never  seems  to  know  anything,  but 
by  the  grace  of  God  he  gets  there  just  the  same. 
I  was  not  far  from  Vpres  and  the  line  of  the  Yser 
during  the  first  battle  for  the  Channel  ports.  Do 
you  know  how  near  we  were  to  the  edge  of  the 
precipice  not  long  before  that  Christmas?  We 
were  on  the  verge.  We  were  nearly  over.  I 
knew  it  then.  So  when,  later  still,  I  used  to  meet 
in  France  an  enigmatic,  clay-coloured  figure  with 
a  visage  seamed  with  humorous  dolours,  loaded 
with  pioneering  and  warlike  implements,  rifles, 
knives,  tin  hats,  and  gas  masks,  I  always  felt  I 
ought  to  get  down  and  walk.  Instead  of  which 
he  used  to  salute  me  as  smar.tly  as  he  could.  He 
will  never  know  how  cheap  and  embarrassed  he 
used  to  make  me  feel.  I  wish  I  knew  enough  to 
do  him  some  justice. 

And  here  once  more  is  the  leave  boat,  and  this 
is  another  Christmas  Eve.  It  was  a  still  twilight, 
with  a  calm  sea  and  a  swell  on  our  starboard  beam. 
We  rolled.  We  looked  back  on  England  sinking 
in  the  night.  A  black  smudge  of  a  destroyer  fol- 
lowed us  over  with  its  eye  on  us.  The  main  deck 
was  crowded  with  soldiers  —  you  could  not  get 
along  there  —  singing  in  their  lifebelts;  at  times 
the  chorus,  if  approved,  became  a  unanimous  roar. 
They  didn't  want  to  be  there.  They  didn't  want 

[188] 


Holly-Ho! 

to  die.  They  wanted  to  go  home.  But  they  sang 
with  dolorous  joy.  The  chorus  died;  and  we 
heard  again  the  deep  monody  of  the  sea,  like  the 
admonitory  voice  of  fate.  The  battles  of  the 
Somme  were  to  come  before  the  next  Christmas; 
though  none  of  us  on  that  boat  knew  it  then. 
And  where  is  the  young  officer  who  went  ashore 
under  the  electric  glare  of  the  base  port,  singing 
also,  and  bearing  a  Christmas  tree?  Where  is 
that  wild  lieutenant  of  the  Black  Watch  —  he  had 
a  splendid  eye,  and  a  voice  for  a  Burns  midnight 
—  who  cried  rollicking  answers  from  the  back  of 
the  crowd  to  the  peremptory  megaphone  of  the 
landing  officer,  till  the  ship  was  loud  and  gay, 
and  the  authorities  got  really  wild?  And  the  boy 
of  a  new  draft,  whose  face,  as  I  passed  him  where 
he  had  fallen  in, —  the  light  dropped  to  it, —  was 
pale  and  nervous,  and  his  teeth  chattering!  Ah, 
the  men  we  met  in  France,  and  the  faces  we  saw 
briefly,  but  remember,  that  were  before  the 
Somme !  Shadows,  shadows. 

It  rained  next  morning.  This  was  Christmas 
Day.  We  were  going  to  the  trenches.  Chris- 
tians awake,  salute  the  happy  morn.  There  was 
a  prospect  of  straight  road  with  an  avenue  of 
diminishing  poplars  going  east,  in  an  inky  smear, 
to  the  Germans  and  infinity.  The  rain  lashed 

[189] 


Old  Junk 

into  my  northerly  ear,  and  the  A.S.C.  motor-car 
driver,  who  was  mad,  kept  missing  three-ton  lor- 
ries and  gun-limbers  by  the  width  of  the  paint. 
One  transport  mule,  who  pretended  to  be  fright- 
ened of  us,  but  whose  father  was  the  devil  and 
his  mother  an  ass,  plunged  into  a  pond  of  black 
Flanders  mud  as  we  passed,  and  raked  us  with 
solvent  filth.  We  wiped  it  off  our  mouths.  God 
rest  you  merry,  gentlemen.  A  land  so  inundated 
that  it  inverted  the  raw  and  alien  sky  was  on 
either  hand.  The  mud  clung  to  the  horses  and 
mules  like  dangling  walnuts  and  bunches  of  earthy 
and  glistening  grapes.  The  men  humped  them- 
selves in  soddened  khaki.  The  noise  of  the  wheels 
bearing  guns  was  like  the  sound  of  doom.  The 
rain  it  rained.  O  come,  all  ye  faithful! 

We  got  to  a  place  where  there  was  no  more 
wheeled  traffic.  There  was  nothing  moving, 
nothing  alive.  That  country  was  apparently 
abandoned.  To  our  front  and  left,  for  no  ap- 
parent reason,  three  little  dirty  yellow  clouds 
burst  simultaneously  over  a  copse,  with  a  smash 
which  made  you  feel  you  ought  to  be  tolerant  to 
men  with  shell-shock.  On  our  right  was  an  empty 
field.  Short  momentary  flames  leaped  constantly 
from  its  farthermost  hedge,  with  a  noise  like  the 
rapid  slamming  of  a  row  of  iron  doors.  Heavy 
[190] 


Holly-Ho! 

eruptions,  as  though  subterranean,  were  going  on 
all  the  time,  the  Lord  knew  where.  But  not  a 
man  was  in  sight  till  we  got  to  a  village  which 
looked  like  Gomorrah  the  day  after  it  happened. 
Some  smoke  and  red  dust  were  just  settling  by 
one  of  the  ruins,  and  a  man  lay  there  motionless 
with  his  face  in  the  rubbish.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  habitation  where  sacking  kept  the 
wind  and  rain  from  unlucky  holes,  with  holly  be- 
hind pictures  tacked  to  its  walls,  and  a  special 
piece  of  inviting  mistletoe  over  a  saucy  lady  from 
La  Vie  Parisienne.  There  was  an  elderly  and 
serious  colonel,  who  had  an  ancestor  at  Chevy 
Chase,  but  himself  held  independent  views  on 
war;  and  a  bunch  of  modest  boys  with  sparkling 
eyes  and  blithe  and  ironic  comments.  They  also 
did  not  discuss  the  war  in  the  way  it  is  discussed 
where  war  is  but  lowered  street  lights.  We  had 
bully  beef,  the  right  sort  of  pudding, —  those 
boys  must  have  had  very  nice  sisters, —  and 
frosted  cake.  There  were  noises  without,  as  the 
book  of  the  play  has  it,  and  plenty  of  laughter 
within,  and  I  enjoyed  myself  with  a  sort  of  veiled, 
subconscious  misery;  for  I  liked  those  lads;  and 
we  are  so  transitory  today. 

Then  one  of  them  took  me  for  a  Christmas 
walk  in  his  country.  "  Have  you  got  your  gas 

[191] 


Old  Junk 

helmet?"  he  said.  "That's  right.  It  makes 
your  eyes  stream  with  tears,  and  you  look  such  a 
silly  ass."  On  we  went.  I  began  Christmas  Day 
in  the  trenches  by  discovering  the  bottom  of  the 
mud  too  late;  though  you  never  can  tell,  when  a 
noise  like  the  collapse  of  an  iron  roof  goes  off 
behind  you,  where  you  are  going  to  put  your  feet 
at  that  moment.  We  went  through  a  little  wood, 
where  the  trees  were  like  broken  poles  with  chewed 
ends.  Over  our  heads  were  invisible  things  which 
moaned,  shrieked,  and  roared  in  flight.  It  was 
astonishing  that  they  were  invisible.  Sometimes 
the  bottom  of  the  mud  of  that  communication 
trench  was  close,  and  sometimes  not;  you  knew 
when  you  had  tried.  And  as  the  parapets  usually 
had  dissolved  at  the  more  dubious  places,  and  I 
was  told  and  heard  that  Fritz  had  machine  guns 
trained  on  them,  I  did  not  waste  much  time  ex- 
perimenting. 

I  found  the  firing-line,  as  one  usually  does,  with 
surprise.  There  was  a  barrier  of  sandbags, 
oozing  grey  slime,  and  below,  in  a  sort  of  little 
cave,  with  his  body  partly  resting  in  a  pool  of 
water,  a  soldier  asleep.  Just  beyond  was  a  figure 
so  merged  in  the  environment  of  aqueous  muck 
and  slime  that  I  did  not  see  him  till  he  moved,  and 
his  boots  squelched.  He  lifted  a  wet  rag  in  the 

[192] 


Holly-Ho! 

grey  wall  and  got  surprisingly  rapid  with  a  rifle 
which  was  thrust  through  the  hole  and  went  off; 
and  then  turned  to  look  at  us.  "  That  fellow  op- 
posite is  a  nuisance,"  said  my  officer.  "  He's  al- 
ways potting  at  this  corner."  "  Yes,  sir,"  said 
the  figure  of  mud,  darkly  louring  under  its  tin  hat, 
"  but  I  know  where  the  blighter  is  now,  and  I'll 
get  the  beggar  yet."  With  a  sudden  recollection 
he  then  touched  iron,  and  grinned. 

Slithering  above  the  ankles  in  well-worked 
paste,  and  leaning  against  a  wall  of  slime,  I  tried 
to  find  "  the  nuisance  opposite  "  with  a  periscope; 
but  before  me  was  only  a  tangle  of  rusty  wire,  a 
number  of  raw  holes  in  shabby  green  grass,  some 
objects  lying  about  which  looked  like  tailors'  dum- 
mies discarded  to  the  weather,  and  an  awe-in- 
spiring stillness. 

There  were  some  interchanges  with  serious  men, 
who  did  not  sing,  but  who  sat  about  in  mud,  or 
leaned  against  it,  and  were  covered  with  it,  or 
who  were  waiting  with  rifles  ready,  or  looking 
through  periscopes,  or  doing  things  over  fires 
which  smoked  till  the  eyes  were  red.  "  Come  and 
see  our  mine  crater,"  said  my  guide.  "  It's  a  top- 
per. Fritz  made  it,  but  we've  got  it." 

I  knew  where  that  crater  would  be,  and  I 
thought  the  less  of  it  as  a  spectacle.  But  "  out 

[193] 


Old  Junk 

there  "  one  must  follow  one's  leader  wherever  he 
goes.  He  was  going  to  make  me  crawl  after  him 
in  "  No  Man's  Land,"  and  it  was  not  dark  yet. 
So  I  acquired  that  sinking  sensation  described  in 
the  pill  advertisements.  The  mud  got  down  our 
collars;  but  we  arrived,  though  I  don't  know  how, 
because  I  was  thinking  too  much.  It  was  only  a 
deep  yellow  hole  in  the  ground,  too,  that  crater, 
with  barbed  wire  spilled  into  it  and  round  it;  and 
you  were  warned  to  breathe  gently  in  it,  for  Fritz 
might  lob  a  bomb  over.  He  was  six  yards  off. 

In  the  forlorn  and  dying  light  of  that  Christ- 
mas Day  I  then  noticed  a  muffled  youngster  beside 
me,  who  might  have  been  your  son,  alone,  grip- 
ping a  rifle  with  a  fixed  bayonet,  his  thoughts 
Heaven  knows  where,  a  box  of  bombs  ready  to 
hand  in  the  filth;  and  his  charge  was  to  give  first 
warning  of  movement  in  that  stillness  beyond. 
As  we  crawled  away,  leaving  him  there,  I  turned 
to  look  at  that  boy  of  yours,  and  his  eyes  met 
mine.  .  .  . 

December  !Ql6. 


[194] 


XX.    The  Ruins 

FOR  more  than  two  years  this  town  could 
not  have  been  more  remote  from  us  if 
it  had  been  in  another  planet.     We  were 
but  a  few  miles  from  it,  but  the  hills  hid  it,  and 
the  enemy  was  between  us  and  the  hills.     This 
town  was  but  a  name,  a  legend. 

Now  the  enemy  had  left  it.  When  going  into 
it  for  the  first  time  you  had  the  feeling  that  either 
you  or  the  town  was  bewitched.  Were  you  really 
there?  Were  time  and  space  abolished?  Or 
perhaps  the  town  itself  was  supernatural;  it  was 
spectral,  projected  by  unknowable  evil.  And  for 
what  purpose?  Suspicious  of  its  silence,  of  its 
solitude,  of  all  its  aspects,  you  verified  its  stones 
by  touching  them,  and  looked  about  for  signs  that 
men  had  once  been  there. 

Such  a  town,  which  has  long  been  in  the  zone 
of  fire,  and  is  then  uncovered  by  trn  foe,  gives  a 
wayfarer  who  early  ventures  into  it  the  feeling 
that  this  is  the  day  after  the  Last  Day,  and  that 
he  has  been  overlooked.  Somehow  he  did  not 


Old  Junk 

hear  Gabriel's  trumpet;  everybody  else  has  gone 
on.  There  is  not  a  sound  but  the  subdued  crack- 
ling of  flames  hidden  somewhere  in  the  overthrown 
and  abandoned.  There  is  no  movement  but 
where  faint  smoke  is  wreathing  slowly  across  the 
deserted  streets.  The  unexpected  collapse  of  a 
wall  or  cornice  is  frightful.  So  is  the  silence 
which  follows.  A  starved  kitten,  which  shapes 
out  of  nothing  and  is  there  complete  and  instan- 
taneous at  your  feet  —  ginger  stripes,  and  a  mew 
which  is  weak,  but  a  veritable  voice  of  the  living 
—  is  first  a  great  surprise,  and  then  a  ridiculous 
comfort.  It  follows  you  about.  When  you  miss 
it,  you  go  back  to  look  for  it  —  to  find  the  miser- 
able object  racing  frantically  to  meet  you. 
Lonely?  The  Poles  are  not  more  desolate. 
There  is  no  place  as  forlorn  as  that  where  man 
once  was  established  and  busy,  where  the  patient 
work  of  his  hands  is  all  round,  but  where  silence 
has  fallen  like  a  secret  so  dense  that  you  feel  that 
if  it  were  not  also  so  desperately  invisible  you 
could  grasp  a  corner  of  it,  lift  the  dark  veil,  and 
learn  a  little  of  what  was  the  doom  of  those  who 
have  vanished.  What  happened  to  them? 

It  cannot  be  guessed.  House  fronts  have  col- 
lapsed in  rubble  across  the  road.  There  is  a 
smell  of  opened  vaults.  All  the  homes  are  blind. 


The  Ruins 

Their  eyes  have  been  put  out.  Many  of  the 
buildings  are  without  roofs,  and  their  walls  have 
come  down  to  raw  serrations.  Slates  and  tiles 
have  avalanched  into  the  street,  or  the  roof  itself 
is  entire,  but  has  dropped  sideways  over  the  ruin 
below  as  a  drunken  cap  over  the  dissolute.  The 
lower  floors  are  heaps  of  damp  mortar  and  bricks. 
Very  rarely  a  solitary  picture  hangs  awry  on  the 
wall  of  a  house  where  there  is  no  other  sign  that 
it  was  ever  inhabited.  I  saw  in  such  a  room  the 
portrait  of  a  child  who  in  some  moment  long  ago 
laughed  while  it  clasped  a  dog  in  a  garden.  You 
continue  to  gaze  at  a  sign  like  that,  you  don't 
know  why,  as  though  something  you  cannot  name 
might  be  divined,  if  you  could  but  hit  upon  the 
key  to  the  spell.  What  is  the  name  of  the  evil 
that  has  fallen  on  mankind? 

The  gardens  beyond  are  to  be  seen  through  the 
thin  and  gaping  walls  of  the  streets,  and  there, 
overturned  and  defaced  by  shell-bursts  and  the 
crude  subsoil  thrown  out  from  dug-outs,  a  few 
ragged  shrubs  survive.  A  rustic  bower  is  lum- 
bered with  empty  bottles,  meat  tins,  a  bird-cage, 
and  ugly  litter  and  fragments.  It  is  the  flies 
which  find  these  gardens  pleasant.  Theirs  is  now 
the  only  voice  of  Summer,  as  though  they  were 
loathly  in  the  mouth  of  Summer's  carcase.  It  is 

[197] 


Old  Junk 

perplexing  to  find  how  little  remains  of  the  com- 
mon things  of  the  household:  a  broken  doll,  a 
child's  boot,  a  trampled  bonnet.  Once  in  such 
a  town  I  found  a  corn-chandler's  ledger. 

It  was  lying  open  in  the  muck  of  the  roadway, 
wet  and  discoloured.  Till  that  moment  I  had 
not  come  to  the  point  of  believing  the  place.  The 
town  was  not  humane.  It  was  not  credible.  It 
might  have  been,  for  all  I  could  tell,  a  simulacrum 
of  the  work  of  men.  Perhaps  it  was  the  patient 
and  particular  mimicry  of  us  by  an  unknown 
power,  a  power  which  was  alarmingly  interested 
in  our  doings;  and  in  a  frenzy  over  its  partial 
failure  it  had  attempted  to  demolish  its  laborious 
semblance  of  what  we  do.  Was  this  power  still 
observant  of  its  work,  and  conscious  of  intruders? 
All  this  was  a  sinister  warning  of  something  in- 
visible and  malign,  which  brooded  over  our  af- 
fairs, knew  us  too  well,  though  omitting  the  heart 
of  us,  and  it  was  mocking  us  now  by  defiling  in 
an  inhuman  rage  its  own  caricature  of  our  ap- 
pearance. 

But  there,  lying  in  the  road,  was  that  corn- 
chandler's  ledger.  It  was  the  first  understand- 
able thing  I  had  seen  that  day.  I  began  to  be- 
lieve these  abandoned  and  silent  ruins  had  lived 
and  flourished,  had  once  a  warm  kindred  life  mov- 


The  Ruins 

ing  in  their  empty  chambers;  enclosed  a  comfort- 
albe  community,  like  placid  Casterbridge.  Men 
did  stand  here  on  sunny  market  days,  and  sorted 
wheat;  in  the  hollows  of  their  hands.  And  with 
all  that  wide  and  hideous  disaster  of  the  Somme 
around  it  was  suddenly  understood  (as  when  an 
essential  light  at  home,  but  a  light  that  has  been 
casually  valued,  goes  out,  and  leaves  you  to  the 
dark)  that  an  elderly  farmer,  looking  for  the 
best  seed  corn  in  the  market-place,  while  his  daugh- 
ter the  dairymaid  is  flirting  with  his  neighbour's 
son,  are  more  to  us  than  all  the  Importances  and 
the  Great  Ones  who  in  all  history  till  now  have 
proudly  and  expertly  tended  their  culture  of  dis- 
cords. 

I  don't  know  that  I  ever  read  a  book  with  more 
interest  than  that  corn-chandler's  ledger;  though 
at  one  time,  when  it  was  merely  a  commonplace 
record  of  the  common  life  which  circulated  there, 
testifying  to  its  industry  and  the  response  of 
earth,  it  would  have  been  no  matter  to  me.  Not 
for  such  successes  are  our  flags  displayed  and  our 
bells  set  pealing.  It  named  customers  at  Thiep- 
val,  Martinpuich,  Courcelette,  Combles,  Longue- 
val,  Contalmaison,  Pozieres,  Guillemont,  Mon- 
tauban.  It  was  not  easy  to  understand  it,  my 
knowledge  of  those  places  being  what  it  was. 

[199] 


Old  Junk 

Those  villages  did  not  exist,  except  as  corruption 
in  a  land  that  was  tumbled  into  waves  of  glisten- 
ing clay  where  the  bodies  of  men  were  rotting  dis- 
regarded like  those  of  dogs  sprawled  on  a  midden. 
My  knowledge  of  that  country,  got  with  some  fa- 
tigue, anxiety,  fright  and  on  certain  days  dull  con- 
tempt for  the  worst  that  could  happen,  because  it 
seemed  that  nothing  could  matter  any  more,  my 
idea  of  that  country  was  such  that  the  contrast  of 
those  ledger  accounts  was  uncanny  and  unbeliev- 
able. Yet  amid  all  the  misery  and  horror  of  the 
Somme,  with  its  shattering  reminder  of  finality  and 
futility  at  every  step  whichever  way  you  turned, 
that  ledger  in  the  road,  with  none  to  read  it,  was 
the  gospel  promising  that  life  should  rise  again; 
the  suggestion  of  a  forgotten  but  surviving  virtue 
which  would  return,  and  cover  the  dread  we  knew, 
till  a  ploughman  of  the  future  would  stop  at  rare 
relics,  holding  them  up  to  the  sun,  and  dimly  re- 
call ancient  tales  of  woe. 

Spring  1917. 


[200] 


XXI.    Lent,  1918 

IT  was  Meredith's  country,  and  Atlantic 
weather  in  Lent.  The  downs  were  dilated 
and  clear  as  though  seen  through  crystal. 
A  far  company  of  pines  on  the  high  skyline  were 
magnified  into  delicate  inky  figures.  The  vacant 
sward  below  them  was  as  lucent  as  the  slope  of  a 
vast  approaching  wave.  A  blackbird  was  fluting 
after  a  shower,  for  the  sky  was  transient  blue 
with  the  dark  rags  of  the  squall  flying  fast  over 
the  hill  towards  London.  The  thatched  roof  of 
a  cottage  in  the  valley  suddenly  flamed  with  a 
light  of  no  earthly  fire,  as  though  a  god  had  ar- 
rived, and  that  was  the  sign.  Miss  Muffet,  whose 
profile,  having  the  breeze  and  the  surprise  of  the 
sun  in  her  hair,  was  dedicated  with  a  quivering 
and  aureate  nimbus,  pulled  aside  the  brush  of  a 
small  yew,  and  exclaimed;  for  there,  neatly  set 
in  the  angle  of  the  bough,  was  a  brown  cup  with 
three  blue  eggs  in  it.  I  saw  all  this,  and  tried 
my  best  to  get  back  to  it;  but  I  was  not  there.  I 
saw  it  clearly  —  the  late  shower  glittered  on  my 
[201] 


Old  Junk 

coat  and  on  the  yew  with  the  nest  in  it  —  but  it  was 
a  scene  remote  as  a  memorable  hour  of  a  Surrey 
April  of  years  ago.  I  could  not  approach;  so  I 
went  back  into  the  house. 

But  there  was  no  escape.  For  I  freely  own 
that  I  am  one  of  'those  who  refused  to  believe 
there  would  be  "  a  great  offensive."  (Curse  such 
trite  and  sounding  words,  which  put  measureless 
misery  through  the  mind  as  unconsciously  as  a 
boy  repeats  something  of  Euclid.)  I  believe  that 
no  man  would  now  dare  to  order  it.  The  soldiers, 
I  knew,  with  all  the  signs  before  them,  still  could 
not  credit  that  it  would  be  done.  The  futile 
wickedness  of  these  slaughters  had  been  proved 
too  often.  They  get  nowhere.  They  settle 
nothing.  This  last,  if  it  came,  would  be  worse 
than  all  the  rest  in  its  magnitude  and  horror;  it 
would  deprive  Europe  of  a  multitude  more  of  our 
diminishing  youth,  and  end,  in  the  exhaustion  of 
its  impetus,  with  peace  no  nearer  than  before. 
The  old  and  indurated  Importances  in  authority, 
safe  far  behind  the  lines,  would  shrink  from 
squandering  humanity's  remaining  gold  of  its  life, 
even  though  their  ignoble  ends  were  yet  un- 
achieved. But  it  had  been  ordered.  Age,  its 
blind  jealousy  for  control  now  stark  mad,  impo- 
tent in  all  but  the  will  and  the  power  to  command 
[202] 


Lent,  1918 

and  punish,  ignoring  every  obvious  lesson  of  the 
past,  the  appeal  of  the  tortured  for  the  sun  again 
and  leisure  even  to  weep,  and  the  untimely  bones 
of  the  young  as  usual  now  as  flints  in  the  earth  of 
Europe,  had  deliberately  put  out  the  glimmer  of 
dawn. 

Well  for  those  who  may  read  the  papers  with- 
out personal  knowledge  of  what  happens  when 
such  a  combat  has  begun;  but  to  know,  and  to  be 
useless;  to  be  looking  with  that  knowledge  at 
Meredith's  country  in  radiant  April!  There  are 
occasions,  though  luckily  they  come  but  once  or 
twice  in  life,  when  the  mind  is  shocked  by  the  basal 
verities  apparently  moving  as  though  they  were 
fugitive;  thought  becomes  dizzy  at  the  daylight 
earth  suddenly  falling  away  at  one's  feet  to  the 
vacuity  of  the  night.  Some  choice  had  to  be  made. 
I  recalled  another-  such  mental  convulsion :  by 
Amiens  Cathedral,  near  midnight,  nearly  four 
years  ago,  with  the  French  guns  rumbling  through 
the  city  in  retreat,  and  the  certainty  that  the  enemy 
would  be  there  by  morning  on  his  way  to  Paris. 
One  thing  a  campaigner  learns:  that  matters  are 
rarely  quite  so  bad  or  so  good  as  they  seem.  Say- 
ing this  to  my  friend,  the  farmer  (who  replied 
that,  in  any  case,  he  must  go  and  look  to  the 
cows),  I  turned  to  some  books. 
[203] 


Old  Junk 

Yet  resolution  is  needed  to  get  the  thoughts  in- 
doors at  such  a  time.  They  are  out  of  command. 
A  fire  is  necessary.  You  must  sit  beside  a  com- 
pany of  flames  leaping  from  a  solidly  established 
fire,  flames  curling  out  of  the  lambent  craters  of  a 
deep  centre;  and  steadily  look  into  that.  After 
a  while  your  hand  goes  out  slowly  for  the  book. 
It  has  become  acceptable.  You  have  got  your 
thoughts  home.  They  were  of  no  use  in  France, 
dwelling  upon  those  villages  and  cross-roads  you 
once  knew,  now  spouting  smoke  and  flames,  where 
good  friends  are  waiting,  having  had  their  last 
look  on  earth,  as  the  doomed  rearguards. 

The  best  books  for  refuge  in  times  of  stress  are 
of  the  "  notebook "  and  "  table-talk "  kind. 
Poetry  I  have  tried,  but  could  not  approach  it. 
It  is  too  distant.  Romance,  which  many  found 
good,  would  never  hold  my  attention.  But  I  had 
Samuel  Butler's  Note  Books  with  me  for  two 
years  in  France,  and  found  that  the  right  sort  of 
thing.  You  may  begin  anywhere.  There  are  no 
threads  to  look  for.  And  you  may  stop  for  a 
time,  while  some  strange  notion  of  the  author's  is 
in  contest  for  the  command  of  the  intelligence  with 
your  dark,  resurgent  thoughts;  but  Butler  always 
won.  His  mental  activity  is  too  fibrous,  masculine, 
and  unexpected  for  any  nonsense.  But  I  had  to 
[204] 


Lent,  1918 

keep  a  sharp  eye  on  Butler.  His  singular  merits 
were  discovered  by  others  who  had  no  more  than 
heard  of  him,  but  found  he  was  exactly  what  they 
wanted.  If  his  volume  of  Note  Books  is  not 
the  best  example  of  its  sort  we  have,  then  I  should 
be  glad  to  learn  the  name  of  the  best.  This  Lent 
I  tried  Coleridge  again.  But  surely  one's  mind 
must  be  curiously  at  random  to  go  to  such  wool- 
gathering. I  found  him  what  I  fear  Lamb  and 
his  friends  knew  him  to  be  —  a  tireless  and  heavy 
preacher  through  the  murk  of  whose  nebulous 
scholarship  and  philosophy  the  revealing  gleams 
of  wisdom  are  so  rare  that  you  are  almost  too 
weary  to  open  the  eyes  to  them  when  they  flash. 
Selden  is  better,  but  abstract,  legal,  and  dry. 

Hazlitt  compelled  a  renewal  of  an  old  respect; 
his  humanity,  his  instinct  for  essentials,  his  cool 
detection  of  pretence  and  cant,  however  finely 
disguised,  and  his  English  with  its  frank  love  for 
the  embodying  noun  and  the  active  verb,  make 
reading  very  like  the  clear,  hard,  bright,  vigorous 
weather  of  the  downs  when  the  wind  is  up-Chan- 
nel.  It  is  bracing.  But  I  discovered  another 
notebook,  of  which  I  have  heard  so  little  that  it 
shows  what  good  things  may  be  lost  in  war;  for 
this  book  was  published  in  1914.  It  is  the  Im- 
pressions and  Comments  of  Havelock  Ellis. 
[205] 


Old  Junk 

There  have  been  in  the  past  critics  of  life  and 
the  things  men  do  who  have  been  observers  as 
acute,  as  well-equipped  in  knowledge,  and  have 
had  a  command  of  English  as  free  and  accurate, 
as  the  author  of  "  Impressions  and  Comments  "; 
but  not  many.  Yet  such  judgments  of  men,  their 
affairs  and  their  circumstances,  could  have  been 
written  in  no  other  time  than  the  years  just  be- 
fore the  war —  the  first  note  is  dated  July,  1912. 
The  reflections  are  often  chill  and  exposed;  but 
so  is  a  faithful  mirror  bleak,  though  polished  and 
gleaming,  when  held  up  to  grey  affairs  in  the 
light  of  a  day  which  is  ominous.  You  seem  to 
feel  in  this  book  the  cold  draught  moving  before 
the  storm  which  has  not  come  —  the  author  knew 
of  no  storm  to  come,  and  does  not  even  hint  at 
it;  but  the  portents,  and  the  look  of  the  minds 
of  his  fellows,  make  him  feel  uncomfortable,  and 
he  asks  what  ails  us.  Now  we  know.  It  is 
strange  that  a  book  so  wise  and  enlivening, 
whether  it  is  picturing  the  Cornish  coast  in  spring, 
the  weakness  of  peace  propaganda,  Bianca  Stella, 
Rabelais,  the  Rules  of  Art,  the  Bayeux  Tapestry, 
or  Spanish  cathedrals,  should  have  been  mislaid 
and  forgotten.  .  .  . 

The  fire  is  dying.      It  is  grey,  fallen,  and  cold. 
The  house  is  late  and  silent.     There  is  no  sound 

[206] 


Lent,  1918 

but  the  ghostly  creaking  of  a  stair;  our  thoughts 
are  stealing  away  again.  We  creep  out  after 
them  to  the  outer  gate.  What  are  books  and 
opinions?  The  creakings  of  an  old  house  uneasy 
with  the  heavy  remembrances  and  the  melancholy 
of  antiquity,  and  with  some  midnight  presage  of 
its  finality. 

The  wind  and  rain  have  passed.  There  is  now 
but  the  icy  stillness  and  quiet  of  outer  space.  The 
earth  is  Limbo,  the  penumbra  of  a  dark  and  par- 
tial recollection;  the  shadow,  vague  and  dawnless, 
over  a  vast  stage  from  which  the  consequential 
pageant  has  gone,  and  is  almost  forgotten,  the 
memory  of  many  events  merged  now  into  formless 
night  itself,  and  foundered  profoundly  beneath 
the  glacial  brilliance  of  a  clear  heaven  alive  with 
stars.  Only  the  stars  live,  and  only  the  stars  over- 
look the  place  that  was  ours.  The  war  —  was 
there  a  war?  It  must  have  been  long  ago.  Per- 
haps the  shades  are  troubled  with  vestiges  of  an 
old  and  dreadful  sin.  If  once  there  were  men  who 
heard  certain  words  and  became  spellbound,  and  in 
the  impulse  of  that  madness  forgot  that  their  earth 
was  good,  but  very  brief,  and  turned  from  their 
children  and  women  and  the  cherished  work  of 
their  hands  to  slay  each  other  and  destroy  their 
communities,  it  all  happened  just  as  the  leaves  of 
[207] 


Old  Junk 

an  autumn  that  is  gone  once  fell  before  the  sudden 
mania  of  a  wind,  and  are  resolved.  What  year 
was  that?  The  leaves  of  an  autumn  that  is  long 
past  are  beyond  time.  The  night  is  their  place, 
and  only  the  unknowing  stars  look  down  to  the 
little  blot  of  midnight  which  was  us,  and  our 
pride,  and  our  wisdom,  and  our  heroics. 

April  igi8. 


THE    END 


[208] 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

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